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U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL

NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR OCCUPATIONAL

SAFETY AND HEALTH

+ + + + +

ADVISORY BOARD ON RADIATION AND

WORKER HEALTH

+ + + + +

SUBCOMMITTEE ON DOSE RECONSTRUCTION REVIEW

+ + + + +

TUESDAY

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

+ + + + +

The Work Group convened in the 

Zurich Room of the Cincinnati Airport 

Marriott, 2395 Progress Drive, Hebron, 

Kentucky, at 8:30 a.m., Mark Griffon, 

Chairman, presiding.

PRESENT:

MARK GRIFFON, Chairman

BRADLEY P. CLAWSON, Member

DAVID KOTELCHUCK, Member

WANDA I. MUNN, Member

DAVID B. RICHARDSON, Member
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ALSO PRESENT:

TED KATZ, Designated Federal Official

KATHY BEHLING, SC&A*

GRADY CALHOUN, DCAS

DOUGLAS FARVER, SC&A

STUART HINNEFELD, DCAS

JENNY LIN, HHS

JOHN MAURO, SC&A*

KEITH MCCARTNEY, ORAU Team*

BETH ROLFES, DCAS

SCOTT SIEBERT, ORAU Team

MATTHEW SMITH, ORAU Team*

JOHN STIVER, SC&A

BOB WARREN*

*Participating via teleconference
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T-A-B-L-E O-F C-O-N-T-E-N-T-S

PAGE

Welcome and Roll Call...................... 4

Items related to NIOSH 10-year review

Presentation of current findings

from DCAS "blind" dose reconstruction

quality case reviews ................. 7

Presentation of ORAU test plan

for validating dose reconstruction

tools ............................... 57

Presentation of historical-to-current

ORAU peer-review procedures

and results tracking ................ 98

Presentation of categorical statistics

on errors detected and/or corrected

through current peer-review

procedure .......................... 140

Issue resolution and lessons learned

for SC&A blind case reviews ........ 171

Issue resolution for Rocky Flats

Plant cases, review sets 10-13 ..... 231

Revisiting Board's dose reconstruction

case review process ................ 314

Continuation of issue resolution

for sets 8-9 ....................... 392
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1 P-R-O-C-E-E-D-I-N-G-S

2 (8:31 a.m.)

3 MR. KATZ: Good morning everyone 

4 in the room and on the line to the Advisory 

5 Board on Radiation and Worker Health, the 

6 Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Review.

7 We'll get started with our roll 

8 call. The agenda for this meeting should be 

9 posted on the NIOSH website, under the Board 

10 section, under meetings for this date. And 

11 some materials related to this meeting should 

12 be posted along with that agenda.

13 Let's do Board roll call. And for 

14 Board Members and Agencies, well Board Members 

15 only actually. Please speak to conflict of 

16 interest with respect to Rocky Flats and LANL. 

17 Are we, John, are we talking about LANL too?

18 MR. STIVER: Yes. LANL and Rocky 

19 Flats.

20 MR. KATZ: LANL, Rocky Flats, just 

21 those two, right?

22 MR. STIVER: I believe that's all 
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1 we have.

2 MR. KATZ: Okay. In particular. 

3 Obviously, also, when we talk about cases, 

4 particular cases, recall your conflict of 

5 interest as well and recuse yourself from 

6 speaking about where you have conflicts for 

7 your major sites, for example. So Board 

8 Members beginning with Mark.

9 (Roll call.)

10 And if you need to speak to the 

11 group press *6 again to come off of mute. And 

12 please, nobody put your phone on hold at any 

13 point in this meeting. But hang up, dial back 

14 in if you need to. And Mark, your agenda.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. As Ted 

16 said, the agenda was posted on line and sent 

17 to all of us. And my hope is that we get 

18 through the first three. We can do these 

19 pretty much in order.

20 I think it does make sense. The 

21 first three items. And I'd like to do the 

22 fourth item, which is the procedures stuff, 
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1 right after lunch when we're fresh and ready 

2 to go. And then as usual, we'll fade into the 

3 last set statement.

4 Well, you know. It's reality. So 

5 starting with the first item. I think most of 

6 this is going to fall into NIOSH's hands. The 

7 first bullet's NIOSH ten year review. Items 

8 relating to the NIOSH 10-year review, starting 

9 with the DCAS blind, DR case --

10 MR. CALHOUN: That will be me.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Whoever 

12 presents it, you can like tell us what was 

13 sent out, so we can --

14 MR. CALHOUN: Okay.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- have a 

16 second to find the documents on our computers. 

17 That would be great.

18 MR. CALHOUN: Certainly. Yes, 

19 this is Grady. We completed one more 

20 assessment of the blind DR program. The last 

21 time we were here I gave you the first one.

22 The second one that just went out 
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1 yesterday is a review of 19 additions blind 

2 DRs that were completed by our group. 

3 Basically there were no overturns of 

4 compensation decisions that resulted from 

5 completion of our review.

6 There were two that the initial 

7 Probability of Causation was different. But 

8 that turned out on further review to be 

9 determined to be an error on our part. The 

10 ORAU DRs are correct. Ours were not.

11 One of those was because somebody, 

12 one of our reviewers, used an overestimating 

13 technique, instead of actually using the 

14 dosimetry that was there, which resulted in a 

15 Probability of Causation over 50 percent.

16 And then the second one, there 

17 were many, many, many, skin cancers and two 

18 lung cancers. And they used a coworker 

19 intake. But it was more appropriate to use 

20 ambient dose.

21 It was an individual who worked as 

22 a -- he was rarely at the site, maybe three or 
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1 four times over the years that they verified 

2 employment. He worked for the city. And he 

3 did some -- he worked on water lines.

4 There was a lot of information to 

5 go through. And I think the individual on our 

6 side should have went through the DOL file a 

7 little bit more thoroughly to make that 

8 determination.

9 Overall we've got -- now just to 

10 let you guys know how it works. We select 

11 cases to review. We review those cases. And 

12 then we wait for the ORAU team to provide 

13 their completed dose reconstruction.

14 They don't know which cases we've 

15 chosen. We don't know when they are going to 

16 turn theirs in. So these sit kind of in limbo 

17 for a while, completed on our side, waiting 

18 for theirs to come in. And then we will 

19 review it.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Just to refresh 

21 our memory.

22 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The selection 

2 criteria, is it random, is it -- how do you 

3 select these?

4 MR. CALHOUN: No. It's random. 

5 And it's cases that have not yet been 

6 completed. Okay. We've selected 70 at this 

7 point, okay. Twenty-seven have been 

8 completed. They've been actually through the 

9 entire process.

10 The remainder, 43, are in various 

11 stages of review at this time. The 27, that 

12 was 19 that were completed in this last 

13 assessment that I just forwarded to you 

14 yesterday. And there were eight in the 

15 initial one.

16 And the number of blind DR 

17 resulting in overturned compensation decision 

18 was zero at this point. Still at 43 in the 

19 pipes that we haven't completed.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And just, can 

21 you step us through what you -- I'm looking 

22 for the file that you sent yesterday.
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1 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, It should be 

2 called --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: First line, no, 

4 no.

5 MR. CALHOUN: It should be called 

6 -- Let's see if I can find it. It's called 

7 OCAS-COT-041. It's a rather large file. 

8 There's 70 pages.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Seventy pages.

10 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, right.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did you have --

12 I must admit I didn't get to look at this one.

13 MR. CALHOUN: Well I didn't get it 

14 to you until --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I saw 

16 it on the plane.

17 MR. CALHOUN: -- the end of the 

18 day yesterday.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can you, do you 

20 have -- I mean, you said that it resulted in 

21 none being overturned.

22 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did you, are 

2 you collecting information like a table of 

3 what NIOSH reviewed --

4 MR. CALHOUN: It's in there.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- versus the, 

6 yes --

7 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, it's in there. 

8 It is, it is.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

10 MR. CALHOUN: And it's -- the 

11 attachments of all the questions that we 

12 respond to are listed for all 19 cases. And 

13 each case has, I want to say three or four 

14 pages associated with, probably three with 

15 each dose reconstruction. And it has the ORAU 

16 team's approach and our approach.

17 MR. FARVER: Did you find any that 

18 would be considered quality errors?

19 MR. CALHOUN: Basically what 

20 turned out is that we routinely have 

21 differences in dose. I mean, it never turns 

22 out that the dose assigned is the same.
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1 And just like the previous 

2 assessment, it turns out that it's always a 

3 result of the degree of overestimate or 

4 underestimate.

5 MR. FARVER: So none that you 

6 consider a quality --

7 MR. CALHOUN: Well certainly the 

8 two that we looked at that were -- The first 

9 one was, there was one that was actually a 

10 procedural violation I'll say. In that you 

11 can't use an overestimating document or 

12 technique for a compensative claim.

13 And so in ours, our first person 

14 will review that, will review the dose 

15 reconstruction. They actually do the dose 

16 reconstruction.

17 And then we've got a second level 

18 of review that compares the two. That 

19 compares the contractor provided dose 

20 reconstruction and the DCAS completed dose 

21 reconstruction.

22 And when that comparison was done, 
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1 that individual found that an overestimating 

2 technique was done. And it should have been 

3 actual dosimetry was used. So that was a, 

4 really a procedural violation on our part.

5 MR. FARVER: On your part.

6 MR. CALHOUN: Yes. And the second 

7 one I think was I'll say more of a 

8 professional judgment. But it was fairly 

9 clear. And everybody who did the re-review of 

10 that, that was an ambient case.

11 I think it may have been that 

12 there were so many cancers involved, that to 

13 go through it would have taken days and days 

14 and days. And if I can comp it based on a 

15 coworker dose, I think that's the direction 

16 you might have taken.

17 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy 

18 Behling. I was curious as to your selection 

19 process. Is the PoC considered at all?

20 MR. CALHOUN: No.

21 MS. BEHLING: Alright.

22 MR. CALHOUN: No. Because we 
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1 don't know the PoC when we select them.

2 MS. BEHLING: That's true. Okay.

3 MR. STIVER: Grady, this is John. 

4 The last time we left it, I guess there was 

5 kind of a, what do you call it, a kind of a 

6 long discussion about the selection criteria, 

7 and the advantages of doing random versus pre8 selecting within the PoC ranges. But I see 

9 here -- I haven't had a chance to really look 

10 at this in detail.

11 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

12 MR. STIVER: But it says that you 

13 guys, as one of the improvements, are to 

14 include the PoC per case. But I didn't 

15 necessarily see that in most of them. Was it 

16 the intention --

17 MR. CALHOUN: Right. We just did 

18 that.

19 MR. STIVER: Was that --

20 MR. CALHOUN: We just did that. 

21 And basically the issue was, is that we wanted 

22 to make sure that we also had a total PoC. 
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1 And that wasn't, there wasn't a slot listed 

2 for that.

3 And now the actual form that we 

4 complete has been modified. So that's a 

5 required field to complete. And another thing 

6 that we did is that we talked to all our HPs, 

7 and asked them to start defining their 

8 decision points a little bit better.

9 Now we probably won't see that 

10 until the next assessment as these things go 

11 out. Because we just did that recently within 

12 the last couple of weeks.

13 MR. STIVER: And were the -- do 

14 you know the cases that were inadvertently 

15 went over to the person done? Were those 

16 cases that were pretty close to the 50th 

17 percentile to begin with? Do you know?

18 MR. CALHOUN: I don't know off the 

19 top of my head. I have to look. The one 

20 certainly was. I think the one with all the 

21 multiple cancers, the ambient case, was 

22 probably in the 40 percent range. But I'll 
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1 have to check. I've got that right here.

2 MR. STIVER: Okay.

3 MR. CALHOUN: I can pull that up 

4 in a second. Let me see. Yes, the one with 

5 the multiple cancers was 43.18 percent as 

6 completed by ORAU. And the first one, where 

7 the actual dosimetry was used was 37.86 

8 percent.

9 MR. STIVER: So is it your sense 

10 now that, you know, as you do more of these, 

11 that you're kind of converging the ORAU and 

12 the DCAS reconstructor, to kind of getting 

13 closer to the same value?

14 MR. CALHOUN: Well I hope so. I 

15 mean, what we've got to understand, and what I 

16 certainly understand, is that our folks are 

17 used to reviewing, rather than doing. And the 

18 ORAU team is certainly used to doing.

19 And they've go the tools laid out. 

20 And they're so accustomed to doing the dose 

21 reconstructions. And when our HPs review the 

22 dose reconstructions, they typically don't do 
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1 the dose reconstruction. They review it, they 

2 look and say, does this make sense for these 

3 values used? And that kind of thing.

4 So certainly I think that the 

5 attention has been raised on being a lot more 

6 careful with this. Because it's just not --

7 We want the effort put forth when our guys use 

8 a blind dose reconstruction.

9 Let's see. Another thing that 

10 we've done too. I don't think that we had 

11 forwarded that previous assessment, prior to 

12 the last meeting, we had to the ORAU team, to 

13 let them know how we are comparing.

14 And so that's been done. And 

15 also, we'll be forwarding this one to them 

16 too, right away. And Scott's going to get 

17 here in a second.

18 MR. SIEBERT: That is good. Got 

19 it right now.

20 MR. CALHOUN: You got it? Okay, 

21 good.

22 MR. STIVER: Bought him just 
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1 enough time.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, I mean, I'm 

3 just flipping through some of the many pages 

4 in this document. And I look, it's on Page 

5 62.

6 MR. CALHOUN: Okay.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Claim number 36 

8 -- no we don't have to say the claim number.

9 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, probably 

10 shouldn't say it.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But anyway --

12 MR. CALHOUN: But Page Number 62.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

14 MR. CALHOUN: Let me see if I can 

15 get that. Okay. I'm there.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Item 

17 B.1.1. I'm curious about the DCAS response 

18 versus the ORAU response there. And it says, 

19 you assign .014 rem. ORAU assigned .034. And 

20 then it says this is based on 0.28, which 

21 appears that ORAU doubled dipped .014 rem 

22 actual dose of record.
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1 So I guess what I'm trying to 

2 understand is, does it appear? Or is that 

3 what happened? And why did they do that? And 

4 then how did it go from .028 to .034.

5 MR. CALHOUN: There's no way I can 

6 answer that question --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. 

8 Alright.

9 MR. CALHOUN: -- off the top of my 

10 head right now. So I don't know. I don't 

11 know.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright.

13 MR. FARVER: That's something I 

14 would consider a quality issue.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well that's 

16 what I'm wondering. You know, when we're 

17 looking -- I think when you're using this 

18 going forward, I'm just wondering, you know, 

19 it's not only to look to see if anything got 

20 flipped. It's to sort of look for trends. 

21 And you've only got a fairly small set so far.

22 MR. CALHOUN: Right.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I'm curious 

2 about whether it's --

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Mark, could I 

4 follow up on that?

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because I was 

7 looking at that too. Because that seemed to 

8 me one of the reasons we were interested in 

9 the blind reviews.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And now that's 

12 an abstraction entry of a single recorded 

13 photon. There's only one recorded dose for 

14 this person. So the data abstraction problem 

15 should not be that difficult.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And there was 

18 an error that -- but so I started up at the 

19 top. And the first three or four cases have 

20 no recorded photon dosimetry. So there was no 

21 data abstraction problems.

22 But by the time we get to Page 28, 
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1 that case has a data abstraction issue, where 

2 ORAU abstracted 60, DCAS abstracted five. The 

3 next case, on Page 31, has an abstraction 

4 issue where ORAU abstracted 20 records, DCAS 

5 abstracted 21.

6 The next case, on Page 35, DCAS 

7 abstracted 14 records, ORAU abstracted 18. So 

8 there's a lot of, I mean, on both sides. For 

9 some reason there's a difficulty in doing data 

10 abstraction. I mean, this is before we're 

11 getting to any of the issues regarding 

12 calculations, or scientific issues --

13 MR. CALHOUN: What's the -- Let 

14 me, I'm going to have to get another one of 

15 these examples.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So --

17 MR. CALHOUN: Give me one of these 

18 examples, so I can --

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Page 31.

20 MR. CALHOUN: Thirty-one.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: This is the 

22 second one I mentioned.
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1 MR. CALHOUN: Three point one 

2 point two.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let's not 

4 mention the claimant here.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I'm just using 

6 the page numbers.

7 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, right.

8 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So if you go 

9 to Section B.1.2. Number of positive recorded 

10 doses; 20. And number of positive recorded 

11 doses by DCAS; 21. I mean, I was just, I was 

12 looking at those.

13 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And there's a 

15 whole series of claims here which have 

16 different numbers of doses.

17 MR. CALHOUN: Okay.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I don't know. 

19 You know, I haven't done anything more than 

20 more. I was just looking through the case 

21 series. So the first ones there's no problem, 

22 because there's no dosimetry information.
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1 And the we hit a series where --

2 I mean, that stands out to me still. I mean, 

3 again, I haven't spent any time looking at 

4 this. But this was one of the things we were 

5 interested in.

6 What's -- now, and I can only say, 

7 I mean, when we were sitting in that room 

8 looking at it, it did seem to me like a very 

9 difficult thing to do. To look at a PDF 

10 version of a microfiche record.

11 If I remember this correctly, the 

12 process, the historical records were maybe, 

13 had been archived to film, scanned into PDF. 

14 And the data abstractor was looking at that 

15 digital PDF of a microfiche of a hand written 

16 log book and abstracting that in.

17 And that is really hard work. I 

18 mean, and we had this problem I remember with 

19 the multiple myeloma study. Where we couldn't 

20 reconstruct a lot of doses from a lot of the 

21 sites exactly, because things were illegible.

22 MEMBER MUNN: Can't read it.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But this was 

2 one of the quality issues, was do you want to 

3 do this by double entry, or something? Where 

4 you at least flag out where there's data 

5 abstraction problems.

6 MR. CALHOUN: Yes. Like I said, 

7 with these I'm going to have to just go back 

8 and look. Because I just don't -- obviously I 

9 don't know these cases off the top of my head.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. No, 

11 absolutely, yes.

12 MR. CALHOUN: But I'll check that.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I just wanted 

14 to point this out as a series of early on in 

15 ten minutes that seemed to pop out. And this 

16 is what we were finding with, I think, with 

17 the case reviews that we had done as well. 

18 That these often occurred.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: David, what were 

20 the page numbers on that?

21 MR. CALHOUN: I got that.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: You got the page 
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1 numbers?

2 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, yes. At least 

3 a couple of them. You got some of them?

4 MR. SIEBERT: What were they 

5 actually? Because --

6 MR. CALHOUN: I got Page 31. And 

7 I'm actually -- I'll send an email just to 

8 see if we can find anything out about that. 

9 I don't know exactly what --

10 MEMBER MUNN: Sixty-two.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Sixty-two, 28, 

12 35. And that's as far as I got.

13 MR. CALHOUN: Is it all on the 

14 B.1.2?

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. That's 

16 just what I was flipping through.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Wonder if 

18 there's any other format that this would be 

19 good to have this information in.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well I'm 

21 imagining that this is stored --

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: In a database.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- in a 

2 database. Is that right? I mean, it looks 

3 like it's generated like --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. But 

5 also, just other fields I was thinking of was, 

6 just looking at -- even though we know there's 

7 going to be variations. It would be 

8 interesting to me to know the total external 

9 assigned, the total internal, you know, 

10 numbers like that maybe.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I like the 

12 form that you guys have made for the data 

13 abstractions. It's great. I was -- I 

14 remember when we were talking, we were sort of 

15 struggling with, like how were we going to 

16 digest this as it's moving forward.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It's perfect.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

20 MR. CALHOUN: Okay, here's one of 

21 the issues here. I can tell you here that 

22 this is -- I don't remember which number this 
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1 has. But this is a paragraph out of the 

2 actual dose reconstruction, which is not in 

3 the assessment.

4 It says, in addition, dosimetry 

5 records indicated some potential short term 

6 gaps in external dosimeter records. For 

7 example, 2002.

8 Potential dosimeter cycle gaps 

9 were filled in based on adjacent cycle 

10 dosimetry data, in order to provide a 

11 claimant-favorable estimate of Mr. S external 

12 dose, in accordance with the guidance 

13 technical basis.

14 So when there's a gap -- and I 

15 don't know if the differences are typically 

16 that ORAU assigned more than we do, or did in 

17 that one case. But that could be it. But I'm 

18 still going to follow up with that.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay. But 

20 would that go under B.1.2, or B.2.1?

21 MR. CALHOUN: Don't know.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because I 
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1 would imagine --

2 MR. CALHOUN: I don't know.

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I would call 

4 that missed dose. As opposed to positive 

5 photon dose.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. For 

7 monitoring.

8 MR. SIEBERT: Well, it actually 

9 would kind of fall under unmonitored as such. 

10 Because if it was a, if you were -- this is 

11 Scott, by the way.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

13 MR. SIEBERT: If you were filling 

14 the gap and there were positive dosimeter 

15 results on either side, it's going to be a 

16 positive result.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. Okay. 

18 So if you use 3.1, unmonitored dose. I'm 

19 sorry, I didn't move down to that category.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Or be at 3.1.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But it should 

22 be, we still should have positive recorded 
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1 photon dose in the IREP sheet for gaps. I 

2 mean, there should be, the explanation for 

3 there being a difference between the number of 

4 years of positive recorded photon dose between 

5 two dose constructors shouldn't be due to 

6 gaps.

7 I'm just, I'm stating that to see 

8 if I'm understanding what you're saying, so I 

9 can understand the values that are recorded 

10 within the matrix here. So there's a question 

11 mark at the end.

12 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, I --

13 MR. HINNEFELD: I think your 

14 premise is correct.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: That if we, you 

17 know, we have to arrive -- part of this whole 

18 process is arriving at a consistent 

19 understanding of what we're doing here. 

20 Because we invented this and threw it at 

21 everybody.

22 But I think what you're saying is 
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1 correct. If there are five years of recorded 

2 dose, and there is a missing year, that we are 

3 going to say it was likely, the person was 

4 likely monitored because their job assignment 

5 didn't change.

6 We can't see why they wouldn't 

7 have been monitored. So we're going to treat 

8 them as if they were monitored during that 

9 year. But we don't have that recorded dose. 

10 That should not be recorded here as a year of 

11 recorded dose.

12 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: It should be 

14 recorded as unmonitored.

15 MR. CALHOUN: Right. And it might 

16 very well be how we're, what we're counting in 

17 those numbers when we're filling out the form. 

18 That's what I'm thinking.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. I think, 

20 yes. And I'm not, now this -- the right two 

21 columns essentially is the reviewer of the 

22 blind, and not the person who does the blind, 
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1 or the person, of course the bridge person 

2 does the --

3 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: The reviewer goes 

5 back and compares the blind to the ORAU one. 

6 He's the one who completes these two columns.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay.

8 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: And so that's the 

10 population people then that we have to focus 

11 this message to. To make sure that when we're 

12 talking about recorded doses --

13 Because that is a clear indication 

14 that something is different. If somebody's 

15 reading six lines and somebody's reading five 

16 lines of recorded dose, that would be a pretty 

17 serious indicator, if it happened a lot.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: And so that would 

20 be a clear indication of a clear message to 

21 our reviewers then, that these mean the 

22 recorded doses in the exposure record, not --
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Empty pages.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: -- something. Not 

3 an empty page, yes, not an, yes exactly. Good 

4 work.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Any 

6 more? I mean, I think this is good. And this 

7 is going to be an ongoing --

8 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, it is.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- part of our 

10 agenda I imagine. Anything more now? Any 

11 other questions now?

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So you were 

13 working at -- I'm thinking it was one or two a 

14 week was the target.

15 MR. CALHOUN: I don't recall what, 

16 I don't recall. I'll get that information. 

17 I don't know what our goal is. But it's not, 

18 certainly not our highest priority, you know.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I think we started 

20 at two, David, and we backed up to one.

21 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Because we were 
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1 building up such an input on these things, 

2 that in light of the other work then we backed 

3 it up to one.

4 But once we have a program that 

5 does something automatically, we don't go back 

6 and remind ourselves very much about what it's 

7 doing right now.

8 MR. CALHOUN: And then we're also 

9 held hostage to some degree by the influx of 

10 completed DRs from ORAU. Because ours can be 

11 sitting there completed. But we can't do 

12 anything with them --

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

14 MR. CALHOUN: -- until we get in 

15 so we can compare it.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And do we have 

17 access to the -- I think we asked this 

18 before. Access to the database that we're 

19 using?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Well that request 

21 -- I missed the last meeting I think.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Because I was, I 

2 think I was traveling. And it came back to 

3 me. And, you know, this is really a work in 

4 progress, you know. Until we take it out and 

5 assess it it's really a work in progress.

6 And I'd hate to make, you know, 

7 get in the normal habit of sort of lifting the 

8 skirt for the Advisory Board, and say look in 

9 the internal workings. I'd rather have a 

10 product here.

11 I'm not really over the moon about 

12 that. I mean, I'm not over the moon about the 

13 idea. I'm not steadfast in my resistance 

14 against it either. If you, you know, I think 

15 there's a fairly simple -- I know it's simple 

16 because I don't have to do it.

17 It's a pretty simple thing for our 

18 TST team to provide this application. It 

19 might be easiest just to do it to all Board 

20 Members, rather than this subset of the Board 

21 Members. Because we have a -- you know, Board 

22 Members can see certain things.
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1 And so if we gave it to all Board 

2 Members it would appear on your staff tools as 

3 just a blind review. And you could do that. 

4 I think, I've thought about this since it came 

5 up.

6 And I don't really have a strong 

7 argument against that. We do want to be open 

8 about stuff to a certain extent. But

9 recognizing that what you're seeing is work in 

10 progress, you know.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right. 

12 MR. HINNEFELD: And I think you'll 

13 be able, if you see what I see, you'll 

14 probably be able to see it all. You'll be 

15 able to see what the progress is, you know, 

16 the cases that have been selected, whether 

17 they got a DR on them or not.

18 And so I guess I don't have a 

19 particular problem with that. I really don't 

20 know my way around the application all that 

21 well. I know how to go to one thing and look 

22 at the comparison.
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1 But I'll see what I can do. I'll 

2 talk to our TST and see if they can do that. 

3 If they can, if it's as easy as I think, it 

4 should happen quickly. And we'll just send you 

5 an email and let you know.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I guess that's 

7 all I was trying to think of, is a way they 

8 look at whatever, what was it, B.1.2, or 

9 whatever. Or in this instance I'm looking at 

10 D.2.1. Maybe I'd like to look at that for all 

11 the cases.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: You could --

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You know, just 

14 be able to query quickly --

15 MR. CALHOUN: You can do that.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: You can't query.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Oh --

18 MR. HINNEFELD: If you want to 

19 query, send it to us --

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Oh, okay.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: -- and we'll see 

22 if we --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You can't 

2 query. Okay, right.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: We can't do that. 

4 This application does certain things.

5 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: As a user we can 

7 do certain things on it.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: It does not have a 

10 query.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Got you.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Does not have a 

13 query. So if you want a query, if you send it 

14 to us, TST could probably do it. Our 

15 Technical Support Team could probably do it.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You know, one 

17 thing in the long run, or a couple of things 

18 is -- the cells that are being filled out with 

19 the DCAS response and the ORAU response, I 

20 don't know how they're doing it.

21 If this is like a -- the point is 

22 that the values that are in the cells are not 
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1 always consistent. Like so B.1.2 says number 

2 of years of positive reported dose. It would 

3 probably be better if the person just entered 

4 two and two. Or, you know, entered a number.

5 But sometimes they write two YRS, 

6 sometimes they write two years, sometimes put 

7 the number two. So in the long run, when you 

8 want to, if you wanted to do any sort of 

9 analysis of that it would be better to 

10 standardize those. And it could be done with 

11 a drop box.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Could be a drop 

13 box, yes.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the same 

15 thing with yes or no. Sometimes is Y and N, 

16 sometimes it's yes. Just to make it more 

17 workable.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Pretty sure that 

19 would be more work for TST, than just letting 

20 you guys look at it.

21 MR. CALHOUN: Right. And I think 

22 that the reason it's not just yes and no is 
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1 because sometimes they leave that open so 

2 there can be some commentary in there.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, yes.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Or to separate 

5 if there's --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: You could have a 

7 separate comment field. I mean you can design 

8 it for query if you want. I don't think it 

9 was necessarily designed to be queried.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I mean 

11 right now there's --

12 MR. CALHOUN: It definitely was 

13 not.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right. Now 

15 there's only 19 of them. But we imagine in 

16 two years --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Right.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- there'll be 

19 another 100 added in. And at some point you 

20 want to summarize it maybe. But anyway, it's 

21 just a suggestion.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And again, I'm 
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1 just looking through the, looking at this 

2 live. But Page 29 and Field D.2.1, this is 

3 certainly one that we've had come up on our 

4 cases. Missed neutron dose.

5 And I think part of it depends on 

6 whether you believe the worker was in an area 

7 where they likely got neutron exposure, which 

8 is what we've struggled with on many cases. 

9 So here you got DCAS assigning 91.6 rem and 

10 ORAU with none.

11 And, you know, I'm just looking at 

12 the ones that jump out at me as -- I wonder if 

13 there's -- even though, like you said, none of 

14 these changed compensation status, it seems to 

15 me that something's wrong there, you know. Or 

16 maybe the guidelines are not clear enough, or 

17 whatever. I don't know.

18 MR. CALHOUN: Yes. It's just 

19 overestimating again, you know.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No. It was 

21 DCAS --

22 MR. CALHOUN: And I think the 
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1 point of that note was, is that DCAS overly --

2 One of the notes that I have written here is 

3 that DCAS was overly favorable in neutron 

4 missed dose. The initial PoC was 23.32, and 

5 then all ours got close to 49.

6 So it's just the degree of 

7 overestimate. And I think the ORAU team is a 

8 little bit more sensitive to -- if they come 

9 up with an overestimate, and it's between 45 

10 and 52 percent, they got to do it over.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well wouldn't 

12 that apply to yours also? If you got 49 --

13 MR. CALHOUN: If we're 

14 overestimating it, and it's less than, that's 

15 really not our -- our thrust is to make sure 

16 that the compensation decision is right. So I 

17 see what you're saying there, you know. We 

18 can certainly look at that.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

20 MR. CALHOUN: But I don't know 

21 that we would be wanting to jump into best 

22 estimate cases unless we had to. So I see 
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1 what you mean there. We'll talk about that.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Okay. 

3 I'm just trying to think about the goal too. 

4 I mean, I know your thrust is to make sure you 

5 got the compensation decisions correct.

6 But the thrust of this program, 

7 this aspect of your program, I think also is 

8 to make sure your DRs are as accurate as 

9 possible, I guess. Or the quality is good.

10 So if you find, if you have things 

11 like this that keep occurring. I'm not 

12 saying, you know -- then you start to wonder 

13 well, what if, you know --

14 MR. CALHOUN: I mean, but you got 

15 a -- it is a degree, you know.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

17 MR. CALHOUN: It's a gradient 

18 here. Because unless that --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

20 MR. CALHOUN: -- ten thousand 

21 iteration Probability of Causation calculation 

22 came up as above 50 percent, it's pretty much 
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1 just as right as the other. It's just not as 

2 precise.

3 MR. KATZ: But you are trying to 

4 avoid grossly overestimating too. So that, 

5 because of --

6 MR. CALHOUN: To some degree. To 

7 some degree, you know. But everybody --

8 MR. KATZ: Sure. I see.

9 MR. CALHOUN: It's an efficiency 

10 thing.

11 MR. KATZ: Right.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm trying to 

13 figure out why you wouldn't apply the same 

14 rules to your reviewers. Going back to that 

15 question about when you're reviewing it.

16 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If it doesn't 

18 go over 50 --

19 MR. CALHOUN: That's why I said, I 

20 think that something we should look at.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because I would 

22 think that, yes. Because that might alleviate 
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1 some of these things.

2 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If you saw that 

4 --

5 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- say we got 

7 to fine tune or, yes.

8 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So they did 

10 other things which overestimated more than 

11 you. I mean, their ORAU photon assigned dose, 

12 the missed assigned dose were all higher.

13 If they had taken the same step 

14 with the neutron over assignment, instead of 

15 assigning zero, which is what they did, which 

16 I would say would be a minimal bound on this -

17 -

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Are you talking 

19 about this case, David? I'm sorry.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What? Yes, 

21 still the same case.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. 
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1 Okay.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because you 

3 ended up at 49 point something, with your 

4 overestimating as a probability --

5 MR. CALHOUN: Forty-eight point 

6 seven.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- of 

8 causation. If they had taken the same 

9 approach with the neutron dose that you had --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They would have 

11 --

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- they would 

13 have been -- Well they would have -- No. 

14 They would have moved themselves into a best -

15 -

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: They would have 

17 sharpen the pencil, right.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And they would 

19 have had to do more work.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's right.

21 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the 

2 question is, they did a lot of things which 

3 were little, little overestimates, in terms of 

4 assigning this photon dose, for example. A 

5 difference of four rem. But they did 

6 something as low as possible with the missed 

7 neutron dose by assigning a zero to it.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Now that to me 

9 doesn't seem -- ninety-one point six rem 

10 versus none doesn't seem to be more overly 

11 claimant-favorable, versus not overly 

12 claimant-favorable. I mean, that's just --

13 There was one DR that the ORAU 

14 person that said this person was not working 

15 in there where they could have gotten neutron 

16 exposure, period, I think. So that's a 

17 different, I think that's a different 

18 question, you know.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: If it was a 

21 matter of 20 versus 40 rem, you know, I could 

22 see, okay there was more claimant-
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1 favorability. But this is a case of, you know 

2 --

3 MR. CALHOUN: Right. I got it.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But, Mike, I 

5 was --

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean, I'm 

7 just, we're just jumping around. But, you 

8 know --

9 MEMBER CLAWSON: This is on the 

10 same case. But the one statement down in the 

11 comment here, where it says there appears to 

12 be two different versions of OTIB-18 being 

13 used. Do they have a different OTIB-18 than 

14 what you do?

15 MR. CALHOUN: They should not. 

16 There is one approved OTIB-18 that's out 

17 there.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well it's just 

19 this comment section down here. That kind of 

20 disturbs me a little bit, to be able to see 

21 that it appears that there is two different 

22 ones.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: Well there are 

2 different -- this is Scott. There are 

3 differences in the application of OTIB-18. 

4 OTIB-33 does give modifications to how you 

5 apply OTIB-18.

6 Whether you're using the full 

7 OTIB-18 values. Whether you're using the ten 

8 percent based on somebody who is unlikely to 

9 have been exposed. But we are still going to 

10 overestimate.

11 So those, that may be the 

12 difference here, without looking at the 

13 specific case. But I can see there are 

14 definitely situations where one person running 

15 OTIB-18, and another would get different 

16 values if they made different assumptions on 

17 OTIB-33.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: But see, looking 

19 at this -- and this is Brad again. How would 

20 we know that they used the other OTIB, 32 or 

21 whatever you were saying.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Thirty-three.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: They would be likely 

2 referenced in the dose reconstruction. 

3 Looking at this you would not necessarily know 

4 that.

5 And this is, and I think Grady's 

6 agreeing with this. This is, you know, we're 

7 going to have to work together on making sure 

8 that the way we're approaching the cases is 

9 more consistent. So that you see the 

10 information that's useful to you, if that kind 

11 of makes sense.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But it points 

13 to another, I mean, this was another issue 

14 that came up, where we had questions about 

15 whether ORAU claims examiners were always 

16 following the protocol of starting with a tool 

17 which, a clean tool pulled from a central 

18 source. That there was, that over time kind 

19 of --

20 As I remember the, kind of the 

21 question here. Over time modifications had 

22 been made to tools. And there's the danger 
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1 that someone doing dose reconstruction was, 

2 had an older version stored on their PC, for 

3 example. Or went back to a workbook that they 

4 had used previously.

5 And that you saw, we saw things 

6 which we couldn't understand how those 

7 mistakes, or how those discordances between 

8 the evaluations we had done, and the ones 

9 which had been prepared that we were provided, 

10 how those arose if there wasn't something 

11 about, a question about the tool.

12 And I think that's what this 

13 remark was pointing to. Brad's asking, are 

14 there two different versions of OTIB being 

15 used because of something that's happened?

16 MR. SIEBERT: Well, and there are 

17 not. In this case this tool is very specific 

18 in that there are different --

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

20 MR. SIEBERT: -- different options 

21 within the tool that can be selected. It's 

22 not different versions of a tool. There's 
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1 different options of applying the OTIB-33 

2 reductions or not.

3 So the tool itself is identical. 

4 And it's an online tool. So it's a consistent 

5 version. So it would be a selection of 

6 decisions in the tool, as opposed to different 

7 versions of the tool. And I'm just saying 

8 this is, you know, without looking at the 

9 case. But that is --

10 MR. CALHOUN: Yes. And I'd have 

11 to talk to the reviewer and find out what he 

12 said on that. I just --

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: On the bottom of 

14 this --

15 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- who makes the 

17 comment?

18 MR. CALHOUN: It's the third 

19 reviewer. We've got --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The third 

21 person to review it.

22 MR. CALHOUN: -- an OCAS HP who 
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1 does the DR, we've got an ORAU person who does 

2 the DR. When those come in there's a third 

3 reviewer who compares those. And they fill 

4 out that form.

5 MEMBER CLAWSON: Okay. Because, 

6 you know, just in reading this --

7 MR. CALHOUN: Yes.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- you see what, 

9 why --

10 MR. CALHOUN: I do. I need to --

11 MEMBER CLAWSON: -- we're 

12 questioning.

13 MR. CALHOUN: I need to talk to 

14 the guys about what they write in these things 

15 actually.

16 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

17 MR. CALHOUN: Really. Just to 

18 make sure --

19 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well I'd like to 

20 --

21 MR. CALHOUN: -- that they're 

22 useful.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I like what 

2 they write. Don't tell them to --

3 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes, don't tell -

4 -

5 MR. CALHOUN: I need it to be more 

6 definitive. It says, it looks like there may 

7 be. I don't want that.

8 MEMBER CLAWSON: Yes.

9 MR. CALHOUN: You know, I don't 

10 want to argue about it.

11 MR. KATZ: Work in progress. It's 

12 a work in progress.

13 MR. CALHOUN: Right.

14 MR. KATZ: Maybe it's better that 

15 way.

16 MR. CALHOUN: Yes, it is, it is. 

17 And so far it's, you know, it's been a fairly 

18 useful tool for us to do these things.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Anything else? 

20 This is good information. I mean, it's good. 

21 I think David's right. The format's good and 

22 the information is good. And I think, well,
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1 deep.

2 Well this is the extent of the 

3 agenda item, at least for a while, on this 

4 Subcommittee, I imagine. Is there anything 

5 else, David, and the Board Members, and Wanda?

6 MEMBER MUNN: No, I think you're 

7 right.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I think it would 

9 be helpful actually for Board Members to have 

10 access to the application.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: And if they want, 

13 if you have time and want to spend some time, 

14 rather than a Board Meeting --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: -- to see these 

17 things and highlight questions that come to 

18 mind, then we could have a more meaningful 

19 discussion either via email --

20 MR. KATZ: Absolutely.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, okay.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: -- or here. 
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1 Having been forewarned about things like this. 

2 I think there's some value here.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. It's 

4 tough to kind of --

5 MR. KATZ: I was going to suggest 

6 --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And there's 

8 seventy pages --

9 MR. KATZ: You all have seen this 

10 just at the last moment. If you would give 

11 this some time between now and the next 

12 meeting. And then if you have access that's 

13 even better.

14 But then forward me any questions, 

15 issues, wishes, what have you. So that DCAS 

16 can be as prepared as possible. So at the 

17 next meeting you can discuss this as deeply as 

18 you want to.

19 So if you provide all that input 

20 to me, I'll provide it. I mean, provide it to 

21 Grady and me. But at least copy me. But I 

22 could sort of coordinate it all, so that they 
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1 don't get peppered in different directions 

2 with --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

4 MEMBER MUNN: That would be 

5 helpful. Because it was a little delightful 

6 and daunting to see this on the screen for the 

7 first time. Whoa, look at all this 

8 information.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

10 MEMBER MUNN: And it's, it will be 

11 very helpful for us to absorb it.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. With 

13 that said, why don't we move to this second 

14 item. Alright with everybody? Presentation 

15 of a test plan for involving -- Let's see.

16 MR. SIEBERT: And I'm going to be 

17 doing that. And Grady gives you a nice big --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And now is the 

19 genesis of this -- I guess I should know my 

20 agenda. Can I ask, I mean, I thought we were 

21 -- refresh my memory, but we had some further 

22 question on your overall QA plan, right? Is 
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1 this is in response to that?

2 MR. SIEBERT: This is addressing 

3 portions of that.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, a portion 

5 of that. Okay.

6 MR. SIEBERT: Because one of the 

7 questions was --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because I 

9 remember specifically asking for this aspect, 

10 right. Did we?

11 MR. KATZ: We did ask. We 

12 discussed this specifically in the last 

13 meeting. And then put it on the agenda.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. 

15 Okay.

16 MR. KATZ: On your behalf.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Thanks.

18 MR. SIEBERT: Okay. Grady gives 

19 you a nice thick file to look through, and I 

20 give you pretty pictures.

21 MR. CALHOUN: That's what I 

22 prefer.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: The first one we're

2 going to cover is the V&V of the dose 

3 reconstruction tools. Actually the best 

4 person to be addressing this is Keith 

5 McCartney, who is our tools manager, who also 

6 lives out near Hanford. So bringing him out 

7 here was not the most economical.

8 However, he has been patiently 

9 waiting on the phone since 5:30 a.m. his time. 

10 So thank you, Keith, very much. And as we go 

11 through here, if there's any questions, you 

12 know, I'll address it or Keith can address it 

13 as we move forward.

14 So the topics, we're going to hit 

15 the general purpose of V&V, the governing 

16 documents that were used, the requirements 

17 documents, configuration management of the 

18 tools themselves, the test plans that we go 

19 through.

20 Graded approach for those tools 

21 that we don't do full blown test plans on. 

22 And the independent verification of the tools 
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1 throughout the whole process.

2 So what's the purpose of 

3 verification validation? Validation is 

4 basically saying, are you building the right 

5 thing? In other words, here is the widget you 

6 want out the end, do you know the process you 

7 need to walk through to get the accurate 

8 widget, so that you can then design the tool?

9 The verification is, are you 

10 building the tool correctly, when you could 

11 gain the information you want, is it giving 

12 you the correct answer out of the tool when 

13 you're done with the tool? Your validating 

14 it's, verifying that it's giving you the 

15 correct answer that you were looking for.

16 The governing documents, the IEEE 

17 standard is what we based our approach upon. 

18 Obviously ORAU Plan 1, they got QAP. And Plan 

19 26 and Procedure 94, as I said, those were 

20 based upon the IEEE standard on how we started 

21 developing dealing with the development and 

22 methodology for software.
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1 And that's actually for the whole 

2 project. And the specific V&V for dose 

3 reconstructive tools, which is done with the 

4 tools group and through Keith's house.

5 The requirements documents. As we 

6 create our tools it's based on the imp guides, 

7 the Technical Basis Documents, the OTIBs, the 

8 procedures. In most cases we don't have the 

9 required, right specific requirement documents 

10 for the tool.

11 Because they're just 

12 implementation of the actual IGs, TBDs and 

13 OTIBs that already exist in our document 

14 control system. It's just implementation. So 

15 that we're implementing more consistently, and 

16 in a more efficient manner.

17 Okay, working right through this. 

18 Configuration management. We use Team 

19 Foundation Server. It's a Microsoft product 

20 that tracks all the tools. It's not just used 

21 for all the dose reconstruction tools. But 

22 it's used for all the software on our project.
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1 Basically, it works like a 

2 library. When a developer wants to work on a 

3 specific tool they check it out of the 

4 library. And at that point no other developer 

5 can pull that tool and do work on it as well. 

6 Just so we're controlling our configuration 

7 correctly.

8 Then when a developer's finished 

9 with it, they check it back into the -- And 

10 that's through all testing and so on. They 

11 check it back into TFS. And then it's 

12 available for all dose reconstructors to work 

13 the rest of the project personnel.

14 So the test plans that we go 

15 through are very intense for the ones that we 

16 do full test plans for. The general sections, 

17 introduction, that's pretty self explanatory. 

18 What's it going to do? Why are we developing

19 this tool?

20 The testing hardware. We have 

21 pretty consistent hardware across the project 

22 for specific laptops that are used, operating 
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1 systems, and so on and so forth. Operating 

2 system we have found is actually one of the 

3 huge issues that we had to deal with as we 

4 migrate to new operating systems.

5 Ensuring that our tools and 

6 everything else works under the same -- gives 

7 us the same answer we were expecting under the 

8 new operating system, as the old operating 

9 system.

10 We just migrated to Windows 7. Of

11 course that means Windows 8 is out. It only 

12 made sense. But we are completing the Windows 

13 7 transformation on -- I believe there's a 

14 few more laptops to get through, and then 

15 we'll be fully Windows 7 compliant on the 

16 project.

17 The prerequisites. This is 

18 basically just what type of things are needed 

19 for doing the tools. Some of them tie 

20 directly into Excel. So you would have to 

21 have the right version of Office. Obviously 

22 operating systems, things like that.
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1 So we pulled that information into 

2 the test plan, so that the testers know that 

3 they have the prerequisite software, and so 

4 on. Procedures to be tested. That's 

5 obviously a pretty straightforward thing.

6 And then we list all the features 

7 that need to be tested, as well as if it's a 

8 totally new tool, they would list all the 

9 features, obviously.

10 Then the test approach is 

11 basically just walking through for the 

12 testers, how they're going to be working 

13 through it. How many testers there's going to 

14 be. Whether there's going to be comparison 

15 between testers, things like that. Just the 

16 overall approach.

17 And the acceptance criteria, 

18 pretty straightforward. Generally the 

19 acceptance criteria is, it meets all the 

20 sections of the test plan, acceptable. Pretty 

21 much what you'd expect, expect for techno's.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What's that 
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1 mean?

2 MR. SIEBERT: What's that?

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So is it a --

4 Is the criteria perfection? Or is the 

5 criteria something else? I mean, sometimes 

6 you have tolerance levels, for example.

7 MR. SIEBERT: Well at this point, 

8 when you're talking about these types of 

9 tools, at this point it's talking a yes/no 

10 answer. Did it give you the answer that was 

11 requested --

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

13 MR. SIEBERT: -- or not? So it's 

14 basically, I believe -- and, Keith, correct me 

15 if I'm wrong. But it's a yes/no, go/no go 

16 correct answer or not acceptance.

17 MR. MCCARTNEY Yes. Generally 

18 that is true. The only exception to that 

19 would be in instances where we have a Monte 

20 Carlo process. If you're looking for an exact 

21 answer you're never going to get one.

22 It will be, you know, a few 
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1 percent. But generally that's what -- It's a 

2 yes or no answer. Is this what you get coming 

3 out of the tool?

4 MR. SIEBERT: Okay?

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You're using -

6 - you're running Monte Carlo with using a 

7 Crystal Ball add in to an Excel spreadsheet? 

8 Or is, how do you implement that?

9 MR. MCCARTNEY Right now the way 

10 we do it, we used to use Crystal Ball. But 

11 now we are using software from a company 

12 called Vose. They have a commercial product 

13 called Model Risk, which is also an Excel add 

14 in.

15 But for our purposes, and for us 

16 to be able to program the tools in the way 

17 that we need them, they've essentially created 

18 a DLL file for us that does all the things 

19 behind the scenes as far as simulating and 

20 fitting the data. All the random number 

21 generation. And so we've been using that 

22 product now for a few years.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: What's the 

2 name of the company again?

3 MR. MCCARTNEY Vose, V-O-S-E.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: V-O-S-E. And

5 you can't explicitly specify a seed, and run 

6 the Monte Carlo twice, and get the same result 

7 out of it?

8 I mean, typically it's not a true 

9 random generator. It's got a explicit seed, 

10 you can run it and you should be able to come 

11 up again at the same place.

12 MR. MCCARTNEY Correct. But 

13 within the software we have, we are not able 

14 to specify the seed. That's auto generated 

15 within the DLL.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And what was 

17 the advantage of moving away from Crystal 

18 Ball? Why did you use somebody else?

19 MR. MCCARTNEY Well Crystal Ball, 

20 as that product matured, and in the newer 

21 versions, they actually, for whatever reason, 

22 took out functionality that we were using in 
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1 our tools. So Crystal Ball became unusable 

2 for us.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: The CDC computers, 

4 there's a CDC computer security issue with 

5 Crystal Ball as well, a security 

6 vulnerability.

7 So it was not, for whatever 

8 reason, it fell off of the approved software 

9 list that CDC publishes for us. And I don't 

10 know why.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because they 

12 want to run these tools networked to the 

13 outside?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: The application of 

15 this specific tool didn't matter so much. CDC 

16 specifies software that we are authorized to 

17 use. And I'm pretty sure this is true, that 

18 Crystal Ball fell off that authorized software 

19 list at some point of evolution.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. You 

21 know, like a lot of things with software --

22 Because you're talking sort of about, I mean, 
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1 the verification side of this. The validation 

2 is your own in house decision about what it is 

3 you would like to get.

4 But the verification part, it 

5 seems to me like one way that software is 

6 verified is by letting there be lots of users 

7 of it, who have different aims and intentions. 

8 They try it out. And they provide feedback 

9 back.

10 Now that's not the case, as far as 

11 I know, with these tools. You hold them in 

12 house. And so how do we verify them? There 

13 are some software packages which are used 

14 more, and some software packages which are 

15 used less.

16 I know a number of people who have 

17 used Crystal Ball. Other people are running 

18 Monte Carlo using SAS, which is heavily 

19 verified. Other people are using packages 

20 which are written by, you know, group written, 

21 which I myself have found problems with.

22 And so I have different levels of 
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1 comfort and discomfort with different -- I 

2 mean, as part of the verification process. 

3 Now this -- I can see you've got a plan in 

4 place for verification.

5 But it's operating within the 

6 constraints of what you can do in house by not 

7 disseminating out any of this, I guess is what 

8 I'm saying. And now I don't know about Vose 

9 at all.

10 But I mean, I just, and that's 

11 probably purely my own ignorance. But I know 

12 that in the world of using Monte Carlo 

13 applications for arriving at solutions to 

14 complex numerical problems, there are 

15 different options out there for how to do 

16 that. I don't know.

17 I just, you got to speak in 

18 person. I found some of the things that 

19 people add in to Excel spreadsheets to be sort 

20 of quirky. That's not to say that all of them 

21 aren't right.

22 But they tend not to be the same 
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1 as those packages written by organizations 

2 which focus institutionally on statistical 

3 software programs.

4 MR. SMITH: This is Matt Smith. 

5 Keith, could you let everyone know the process 

6 that occurred when we switched over to Vose 

7 and did some benchmarking against Crystal Ball 

8 that was in place at the time?

9 MR. MCCARTNEY Yes, I mean, before 

10 we ever -- I mean, first of all, you know, 

11 going to a new product like Vose, that is for 

12 what we do, I mean, it's pretty 

13 straightforward. Because we just have two or 

14 more distributions that we're multiplying 

15 together with an end result.

16 And so that's very easy to 

17 benchmark using other programs. And we did 

18 that with both Crystal Ball and At Risk, 

19 comparing those to our results using our Vose 

20 software.

21 And so it was pretty easy to see 

22 that you were going to get, you know, in terms 
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1 of Monte Carlo the same results. You know, 

2 you would get, you know, the same distribution 

3 with the same dose, with a variance of just a 

4 couple of percent. And you're always going to 

5 have that variance, just due to the 

6 statistical nature of the Monte Carlo process.

7 But, yes, when we did, you know, 

8 use those it was definitely benchmarked 

9 against other commercial products, to make 

10 sure that we were getting the correct result.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Is there 

12 benchmarking activity that you know of, or a 

13 thesis, about the capability of the software 

14 that's being used in house?

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I don't 

16 know. No. I suppose not.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Is there something 

18 that can done that can ease your concerns?

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You know, I 

20 think the great thing would be -- there's not 

21 a way that the tools can be -- are there use, 

22 I mean, are there other people who would be 
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1 interested in using the tools, who can try 

2 them? Or is it really kept in house?

3 MR. CALHOUN: What, the dose 

4 reconstruction tools?

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

6 MR. CALHOUN: Those are all in 

7 house.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: I mean, are there 

9 other people who would have an application for 

10 this type of tool?

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, that 

12 was the first question. Are there people who 

13 would use them? And what's the --

14 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't envision 

15 who else would want to do this. Having done 

16 it for ten years, why would anybody else want 

17 to do this?

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, there 

19 are epidemiologists who do dose 

20 reconstruction. Who take internal external 

21 dose. And they use the IMBA program, for 

22 example. When you have a --
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, sure.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And you have a 

3 version of the IMBA program, which is your 

4 version of the IMBA program. Those people who 

5 use the IMBA program currently pay a high 

6 license fee for it. And that may be the 

7 obstacle to letting them use your version of 

8 it.

9 MR. HINNEFELD: Boy, I don't know 

10 what the -- I really can't speak to that in 

11 terms of the Vose licensing. And whether 

12 there would be a cost for doing something like 

13 that, or making it available.

14 But I would think that the dose 

15 reconstructions we do would be considerably 

16 different from a dose reconstruction that 

17 would be done for an epidemiology study. And 

18 that, I'm not so sure that our tools are 

19 flexible enough.

20 They're not built with the idea 

21 that, let's build this tool so that one of the 

22 options the person has is to do a dose 
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1 reconstruction like we would do for an 

2 epidemiology study.

3 So I believe that -- I just don't 

4 see the user population out there that would 

5 have an interest in using these tools for any 

6 purpose other than what we're using them for. 

7 You know, we didn't try to build them for 

8 epidemiology approaches.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, the 

10 nice things is, you have the option to use the 

11 tools for best estimates, as well as over 

12 estimates.

13 I mean, you can specify 

14 distributions around each annualized dose, in 

15 a way which is at a level of sophistication 

16 which is actually never done in epidemiology. 

17 But it's probably, it may be a better tool 

18 than those that I think that are often used.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: I think it would 

20 require an overt effort on the part of an 

21 epidemiologist, someone who does those 

22 reconstructions for epidemiology, to say, okay 
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1 if I were going to use this data set that we 

2 have and an approximation of these tools, what 

3 decisions would I want to put in here?

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: And that, I think 

6 actually it's kind of an interesting idea.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: But probably not 

9 something we'll pursue on our dime right now. 

10 I just don't see that as our task, you know, 

11 as to what we've been trying to do with the 

12 program.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean, this 

14 again, it gets to one of these things of, I 

15 think the more opportunity for interaction 

16 with, you know, academics who do the same sort 

17 of work that you're doing.

18 If there's cross exchange it would 

19 help with things it would help with my level 

20 of comfort with things like verification. 

21 That you have people who bring different tools 

22 and evaluate the performance of these. Or 
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1 different perspectives on them.

2 I don't know what all the 

3 obstacles are. But I mean, I'm just looking 

4 at Vose. It seems like there's David Vose, 

5 and there's somebody else who are involved in 

6 it. I mean, it's -- I just, I don't know, 

7 yes.

8 MR. SIEBERT: Well, and one --

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But the whole 

10 thing, the whole machinery is actually very 

11 black boxy to me. And so it's, you know, and 

12 it's a very, very complicated black box. And 

13 so how do you verify, I mean, without having 

14 people have a chance to look at it?

15 MR. SIEBERT: Well what I was 

16 going to say is, one of the tools that we are 

17 presently working on that's coming down the 

18 road is CLL, since CLL has been added as a 

19 grade in cancer.

20 And the precursor -- There's not 

21 an organ of interest for CLL, since it's the 

22 precursor cells to the blood. And it's moving 
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1 throughout the body and into the organs.

2 Based on that we are working with 

3 developing a tool for implementing the 

4 methodology for assessing CLL. And we are 

5 actually developing the tool under Vose. But 

6 we are benchmarking it against At Risk.

7 So there are different places 

8 where we are trying to do, and as we said, 

9 when Vose first came on line doing 

10 benchmarking against different software 

11 packages as well. As we run into those 

12 situations, yes, we're doing what we can to 

13 work on those type of benchmarks.

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Was Daniel 

15 Stancescu involved in that? He was involved 

16 in that, right?

17 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, Daniel's 

18 working on it, yes.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: That's our 

20 statistician. I don't know if there's more we 

21 can learn about and talk about more, you know, 

22 of that actual activity. I think if we're 
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1 interested in that, I think we might be able 

2 to get Daniel down there, or Jen to speak 

3 about it.

4 I don't know about today. But at 

5 some other meeting we could. So it's a 

6 thought. Because it wasn't, you know, this 

7 wasn't, you know, we were engaged in that, in 

8 that benchmarking process that we developed.

9 So we could, someone do what I'm 

10 not smart enough to know much about. But it 

11 wasn't something that ORAU did without any 

12 oversight from our people.

13 So, yes, I don't know where else 

14 to go with this. I understand your point. 

15 And a broad user base with who could then 

16 essentially send in bug reports, essentially.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: With, you know, I 

19 am familiar with that sort of approach. I 

20 just don't see the user base. Because we 

21 didn't build it for any purpose other than 

22 this program.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Which is a, 

2 you know, a strength and a limitation, right?

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It's like the 

5 first, you build a car the first time.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, I guess. I 

7 guess. Yes, it does provide, you know --

8 You're right. You don't have as much overall, 

9 you know, world wide review of it, as you may 

10 have on other things.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And a lot's 

12 riding on it. A lot's riding on it, so --

13 MR. HINNEFELD: I know.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And that's 

15 really --

16 MR. KATZ: Well do you want to see 

17 the benchmarking results? Because if they're 

18 using Crystal Ball and the other --

19 MR. HINNEFELD: At Risk. At Risk 

20 was the CDC authorized replacement for Crystal 

21 Ball.

22 MR. KATZ: If they're using, if 
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1 they're benchmarking against those, and 

2 they're getting the same results, where's the 

3 room for concern, really? I mean --

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I, you 

5 know --

6 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: You worry in a 

7 very complex program that both efforts can be 

8 mistaken at some points. I mean, there are so 

9 many different issues that come up.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: The issue is that 

11 if it is particularly complex, if you're 

12 dealing with a complex system you don't 

13 benchmark every conceivable situation. So you 

14 have -- that's the issue.

15 MR. KATZ: But that's what I said. 

16 Do you want to see the benchmark testing?

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well that's --

18 But the thing is, I mean --

19 MR. KATZ: The extent to which --

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- he was 

21 describing like Explorer. But, you know, the 

22 convolution of two normal distributions. And 
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1 I certainly hope that, you know, that two 

2 random number generators can lay together 

3 that.

4 But this, I mean, actually a lot 

5 of the distributions that end up getting 

6 layered one on top of the other here are so 

7 complicated that it's really hard to kind of 

8 think through the possibilities. And to, you 

9 know, it's a hard thing to test that way.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: So then it sounds 

11 like it's --

12 MR. KATZ: Part of this is just 

13 sort of a limitation of the world as we have 

14 it.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well it is. 

16 Except that the more users there are of the --

17 MR. KATZ: Yes. No, I understand.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- who have 

19 been trying things that are questionable, it's 

20 --

21 MEMBER MUNN: But we don't have a 

22 Dancing With the Stars audience.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No. But I 

2 mean, it's actually kind of surprising. There 

3 are so -- I mean, you look around the world, 

4 there actually are a lot of people who are 

5 dealing with uncertainties in radiation risk 

6 modeling. There are some very good groups.

7 MEMBER MUNN: And the middle serve 

8 the number generators generated who build a 

9 workshop. So if we don't know what can be 

10 done to help ease your concern it's hard to 

11 give directive to the agency though.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I was 

13 just trying to clarify where we are.

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

15 MR. SIEBERT: Okay. And where we 

16 are is -- and then of course we have the test 

17 suspension and resumption criteria. If a 

18 tester does find an issue with the tool we 

19 stop and work with the developer. And we get 

20 it fixed and get back to it.

21 Test deliverables. All the 

22 documentation goes along with it, input, 
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1 output, all the documentation. And require 

2 the coordination with other organizations.

3 Frequently we have to deal with 

4 IT, obviously. Especially if it's something 

5 that is production related, that we can't be 

6 testing a production tool in production.

7 So we have to have a test 

8 environment set up with IT. And they take 

9 care of all that kind of stuff for us. And 

10 then just a general listing of tasks.

11 And it's just a straightforward 

12 step through of, Step One, you're checking for 

13 this. You perform Step One, and here's your 

14 outcome. Verify that the outcome is this one. 

15 Verifying, you know, push this button and 

16 verify Step Two, and so on and so forth. This 

17 is a security --

18 MEMBER MUNN: Is it?

19 MR. KATZ: I don't know, it looks 

20 fuzzy to me. Is it fuzzy, or is it me?

21 MR. SIEBERT: It probably is fuzzy 

22 from the copy. Because if you look at the 
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1 text at the top it's not as fuzzy.

2 MR. KATZ: I didn't bring my 

3 glasses. That's the problem.

4 MEMBER MUNN: That's the problem

5 MR. FARVER: That is completed for 

6 each tool, right?

7 MR. SIEBERT: That is completed 

8 for every tool that rises to the level of 

9 using a test plan.

10 MR. FARVER: Okay.

11 MR. SIEBERT: We're going to get 

12 to that. And then a V&V deficiency report, 

13 what the testers found if there were 

14 deficiencies. And this just goes back and 

15 forth between the developer and the tester, 

16 until there's a verified corrected result, and 

17 it's implemented.

18 This is where you were getting 

19 into, Doug, the graded approach. The software 

20 integrity levels. The IEEE standard has 

21 various levels of integrity. The highest 

22 level is if someone loses their life because 
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1 of software fails.

2 Obviously we're not at that level. 

3 It's very important to everybody involved. 

4 But it's not at that level. So those are the 

5 type of levels in the IEEE. They didn't 

6 necessarily quite apply to how we were doing 

7 what we do.

8 So we put together our graded 

9 approach based on complexity of the tools and 

10 transparency of the tools. The more complex, 

11 and the less transparent, the more testing 

12 that has to be gone through.

13 And for the ones where we don't do 

14 a full test plan we have a Form 54. And 

15 that's basically a listing of the items that 

16 need to be tested. And the tester walks 

17 through it.

18 And I've got a couple of examples 

19 to show you, and walk through it. Just 

20 because it's not as complicated as a full test 

21 plan and required. Our full test plans are 

22 things like the CAD process.
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1 We deal with a very, very 

2 complicated and very, to use your word, very 

3 black box type of tools. As soon as we pull 

4 Monte Carlo out of the external tools, they 

5 look really complicated. But you can follow 

6 from --

7 And I know Doug can attest to 

8 this. Because he's had to do it in some 

9 tools. You can follow from where the input 

10 is, through the steps, not matter where it 

11 moves in the tool. It can be complicated 

12 where it goes.

13 But where the final answer is, you 

14 can actually scratch it on a piece of paper 

15 and get the same answer. As long as we're not 

16 going into distributions. So they may appear 

17 complex and black boxy.

18 But when you go at a separate 

19 piece at a time, they're not as complicated as 

20 something like CAD, where you put in a number 

21 and all the IMBA stuff was pulled together.

22 And then you get a final answer, 
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1 which it's very difficult to verify 

2 separately. So when we do this -- And this 

3 is not just in the test plans, but also in the 

4 Form 54s. Obviously, independent 

5 verifications is a cornerstone for us. Very 

6 much like peer review.

7 It's an independent reviewer is 

8 going through anything that's not cosmetic, 

9 like, you know, color changes and font changes 

10 and things, things like that.

11 Any change we make to the tool is 

12 independently verified by a qualified 

13 individual, who's not the person who made the 

14 changes. As I said, same as peer review. 

15 Normally our independent reviewers, testers, 

16 are the dose reconstruction leads for the 

17 sites of interest.

18 So the Rocky Flats tool, it would 

19 be the person who is in charge of Rocky Flats, 

20 who would know it most intimately. Now 

21 there's times we have to get that individual 

22 involved in the development of the tool, 
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1 because it's very complicated.

2 Such as Rocky is a great example, 

3 because all the NRDB, how you deal with the 

4 neutron dose reconstruction data, along with 

5 the other data. What subtractions there are.

6 So we actually pull the site 

7 person into the development of the tool. So 

8 we have a separate individual do the testing 

9 of the tool. That's after that. Let me pull 

10 up --

11 MR. STIVER: Scott, before you 

12 start on that --

13 MR. SIEBERT: Yes.

14 MR. STIVER: -- the last slide. 

15 Do you have a kind of a generalized protocol 

16 that you give to these testers? Sort of 

17 trying to break it in this way using these 

18 types of techniques? Or is it because each 

19 site is, some of the little nuances that, like 

20 you say --

21 Like with Rocky you have to bring 

22 in, you know, an individual who really knows 
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1 that aspect of that tool? So you basically 

2 kind of let them go ahead and take charge?

3 MR. SIEBERT: Keith, feel free to 

4 jump in and tell me if I'm going off 

5 reservation here. But generally speaking, 

6 when we're updating the tools to develop that 

7 whole thing, we know what the specific issues 

8 are that we're updating, and what we're 

9 applying.

10 So the tester can have a list of 

11 what the issues were that were updated in the 

12 tool. So they can walk through each of those 

13 issues, and say, okay was this correctly 

14 identified? Was it implemented correctly?

15 Such as right here, I pulled up 

16 Lawrence Berkeley National Lab when we did an 

17 update to that. The person verifying 2X 

18 missed doses is now reported as 1X. That is 

19 sticking --

20 Back when we changed how we 

21 recorded things, missed dose used to be 

22 reported at the 95th percent confidence level 
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1 instead of 50th. Once we made that change and 

2 reported it, the 50th like everything else, 

3 the tools had to be revised to report the 

4 right value.

5 So the test will check that. And 

6 then verify the exchange value frequency, 

7 results in the correct LOD/2 value. Once we 

8 put the LOD/2 process into place.

9 So the actual issues are listed 

10 out and the dose reconstructor or the verifier 

11 walks through those and verifies that they all 

12 are implemented correctly.

13 MR. STIVER: Okay. Thank you. I 

14 was getting at kind of the present --

15 MR. SIEBERT: Oh, wait a second. 

16 Keith wanted to add something here.

17 MR. MCCARTNEY Yes. The only 

18 other thing I would add is that, you know, the 

19 dose reconstructor, that they've been using 

20 these tools for, you know, coming up on ten 

21 years now.

22 And like in the case of like the 
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1 external dose tools, they really haven't 

2 changed much. So the DRs are very familiar 

3 with the tools. And they know where to go and 

4 what things to check out when things are 

5 changed within the tool.

6 And that's part of what it makes 

7 it easier for the dose reconstructors is they 

8 have that, you know, they're so familiar with 

9 the tools.

10 MR. STIVER: Just one last thing.

11 MR. SIEBERT: Yes.

12 MR. STIVER: I would assume then 

13 that each tool then has like a V&V file where 

14 you keep track of all these changes and the 

15 test results and all that? That's available 

16 for somebody to --

17 MR. SIEBERT: Right. And that's 

18 all tied into TFS, right, Keith?

19 MR. MCCARTNEY That's correct.

20 MR. SIEBERT: That's in our 

21 configuration management system.

22 MR. STIVER: Yes.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: And I have a old 

2 test plan here that we did for the CAD 

3 program. I'm sure you probably don't want to 

4 see it. But I'll throw it up, just saying 

5 that we actually did it. It's 80 pages.

6 So this is what we did back in 

7 2009 when we were doing verification, 

8 including the CAD tool in that version of the 

9 doc map.

10 And it just walks all through 

11 those sections, features to be tested, 

12 verification for a single radionuclide, 

13 multiple nuclides, identifying the DC origin 

14 factors, all the snaps.

15 MR. FARVER: Scott, so what's the 

16 sequence like when a Site Profile gets 

17 updated, or gets changed? How, you know, how 

18 long does it take for the tool to get updated?

19 MR. SIEBERT: Keith, you want to 

20 address that?

21 MR. MCCARTNEY Yes, I guess that, 

22 you know, kind of depends. I mean, obviously 
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1 the dose reconstructors, they're aware of the 

2 new requirements as soon as the documents are 

3 published.

4 And then, you know, we'll get with 

5 the site leads to see if any changes need to 

6 be made. And time frame is generally 

7 dependent upon, you know, the workload in the 

8 group and what changes can be made. For a 

9 simple change, like a change in a dose value, 

10 you know, those can be done, you know, 

11 quickly, like an X-ray dose value.

12 But it's an entirely new process 

13 then we have to implement, you know, and we 

14 have to put in a new TIB-17 process for 

15 applying skin dose. That's much more 

16 complicated, and it will take quite a bit more 

17 time to put that into a tool.

18 MR. FARVER: Okay. So you don't 

19 try to make the effective date of the Site 

20 Profile and the TBD coincide with the 

21 effective date of the revision to the tool?

22 MR. MCCARTNEY Yes, we wait until 
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1 we have a finalized document that's published 

2 --

3 MR. FARVER: Right, but --

4 MR. MCCARTNEY -- before we make a 

5 change to the tool.

6 MR. FARVER: -- you could have a 

7 date that it's published. But then you would 

8 have an effective date, when you would start 

9 using it. I believe that's how it works.

10 MR. STIVER: What you're getting 

11 at is how you get, coordinate the changes to 

12 the TBD --

13 MR. FARVER: So you make sure 

14 everyone's using the correct version of the 

15 tool.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: The process would 

17 be the date of the change of the tool. You 

18 know, when the dose reconstruction process 

19 changes would be the date, the end date of the 

20 DRs you would have to consider on a PER. So -

21 -

22 MR. FARVER: Okay.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: -- you understand 

2 what I'm saying?

3 MR. FARVER: Yes.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: There may be a 

5 revised version of the Site Profile. And 

6 routinely, while we are revising the Site 

7 Profile we know that there are revisions 

8 underway on the Site Profile.

9 Sometimes we know there are going 

10 to be revisions. We don't even know what 

11 they're planning on being. Routinely, we 

12 continue to work dose reconstructions to the 

13 previous version.

14 Because the alternative is to just 

15 stop. And things would stop everywhere. 

16 Because so many DR, so many Site Profiles are 

17 in that situation.

18 MR. FARVER: I understand. But 

19 you're not working on the revisions to the 

20 Site Profile, and say revisions to the tool, 

21 so that they coincide?

22 MR. HINNEFELD: No, the tool work 
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1 follows when we know what the final dose, once 

2 we know what the final Site Profile's going to 

3 be. That's when the tool work's done.

4 MR. SIEBERT: And from the time 

5 that the TBD gets released until the time the 

6 tool is updated, we'll handle those 

7 differently depending on how much difference 

8 there is.

9 I mean, if it's just some very 

10 small specific changes that they made, the 

11 dose reconstructors may do the work with the 

12 present tool, and validate making changes 

13 either in IREP, or so on. That's pretty 

14 unusual for us to have to do that.

15 But if it's a minor change, we may 

16 do that. Usually we'll hold off until the 

17 tool is available to be used, so we won't be 

18 doing dose reconstructions during that time 

19 frame.

20 So when we go back and do a PER if 

21 we need to, there usually will not be any 

22 claims done in between that time frame. And 
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1 many TBD updates don't generate that change to 

2 the tool. It may be something else.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we're holding 

4 on to, for instance, Hanford non-SEC cases 

5 from the last Hanford pass I was at. You 

6 know, that Site Profile has to be modified to 

7 essentially take out some things. Because 

8 they were deemed unfeasible.

9 So we're waiting. You know, those 

10 are collecting until that Site Profile is 

11 ultimately revised. And then the tool's ready 

12 to go, which is supposed to be next month, I 

13 think.

14 MR. CALHOUN: And those cases are 

15 physically dependent in NOCTS. So that they 

16 can't be revised until --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Until the tools. 

18 And after case we stop those. And, you know, 

19 we know what the next product's going to be. 

20 And it should be a relatively limited amount 

21 of time before it's ready. And so we're 

22 waiting for those.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: Okay. That's the 

2 V&V. That's the first one. And move on to 

3 the second one. Actually, the second and 

4 third are tied together, which is the 

5 evolution of the peer review process for 

6 documentation, and the tracking systems that 

7 we've created over time.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So this is 

9 getting into the next item on the agenda, 

10 right?

11 MR. SIEBERT: This is the next 

12 point, yes.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Are there any 

14 more questions on the --

15 MR. SIEBERT: Sorry.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's alright. 

17 Are there any more questions on the V&V 

18 section? Alright.

19 MR. SIEBERT: Okay? Now we will 

20 move on to evolution of ORAU team. So a 

21 pretty picture's always worth a thousand 

22 words. This is the general process we have 
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1 for our QA/QC process.

2 Starting in the top left, it's 

3 assigned. The dose reconstruction is 

4 assigned. The DR completes it or revises it, 

5 if it's a, if it came back from DOL with new 

6 keys, or whatever.

7 We do an initial QC review, which 

8 the last time we were together, which was 

9 what, August? Part of the August presentation 

10 that I put in there was discussion of the IQC 

11 process, and some of the tech editing and 

12 final QC that are showing up here in the 

13 middle, and at the end. So I really won't get 

14 specific on those.

15 But that's where we have a 

16 different process that takes care of all those 

17 initial and final QC type things. So once the 

18 dose reconstruction is complete it goes 

19 through that step.

20 And they're looking for things 

21 like comparing that the IREP sheet total dose 

22 meets the, is identical to the dose 
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1 reconstruction report, as well as that all of 

2 the documentation, everything that's in NOCTS 

3 is correct, and they claim all that kind of 

4 stuff as well.

5 Then we hit the peer review 

6 process. It's following Procedure 59, and 

7 following Form 41, which is the PR checklist 

8 that is near and dear to all of our hearts, 

9 because we talked about it a lot.

10 As I mentioned in the last 

11 process, peer review, it's independent senior 

12 dose reconstructors who are doing peer 

13 reviews. Somebody who's not been working on 

14 that case with the dose reconstructor is a 

15 fresh set of eyes, just like we do in software 

16 validation, or the same that Keith is doing 

17 with the blind reviewers.

18 So once peer review is complete, 

19 it goes to the center. And does it meet the 

20 PR standards? If it doesn't, then it gets 

21 kicked back to dose reconstruction. And we 

22 just work through this nice little cycle to 
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1 make sure all the errors that require 

2 revisions get fixed.

3 And it goes back to the same dose 

4 reconstructor to get changed. And the same 

5 peer reviewer reviews it again so that we have 

6 consistency in comments, and so on and so 

7 forth. And then once it does meet the 

8 process, the standards of the peer reviewer, 

9 we get to move down through the diamond.

10 So either that means there were no 

11 comments at all, or there was only feedback, 

12 which means they may, the peer reviewer may 

13 send a form back saying, here is how you 

14 assess it. Here's another idea you may want 

15 to look at.

16 It may be a professional judgment 

17 difference. There's no error involved. But 

18 they may make some suggestions, such as, 

19 clarity of wording. This might have been 

20 better handled. Here's a way to do it. Not 

21 an error.

22 Or if there's an error where no 
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1 revision is required, it goes back to the dose 

2 reconstructor. Small things like typos, the 

3 peer reviewer doesn't have to kick it back to 

4 the dose reconstructor for that. They can 

5 make small changes like that, as long as they 

6 check with the dose reconstructor first, so 

7 that they know all the changes that are being 

8 made.

9 Any time we hit the no comments 

10 feedback, or it's only small errors, that's 

11 when it gets pushed down to the peer review 

12 complete, which is also covered by Procedure 

13 59, Form 42, which is the form that we 

14 document and keep, that states they followed 

15 the process of peer review in Procedure 59. 

16 And we have that document.

17 This is where we put information 

18 into the peer review feedback database that we 

19 have created recently. Then it goes to tech 

20 editing, as I said, final QC. And then the 

21 draft DR goes over to NIOSH. And they, Grady 

22 smiles because he has another one to look at.
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1 MR. FARVER: Before you leave now.

2 MR. SIEBERT: Yes.

3 MR. FARVER: What exactly do they 

4 look at in the initial QC review.

5 MR. SIEBERT: Oh, boy. You were 

6 here last time. We talked about this in 

7 August. There's a procedure that's in place. 

8 I want to say Procedure 94, something. I 

9 don't remember off the top of my head. But 

10 that's where they do the comparisons to make 

11 sure all the IREP values are the same in the 

12 report.

13 And the IREP, they'll look for 

14 documentation that the names are all correct. 

15 That the correct origin of interest was used. 

16 Anything that they can simply compare to 

17 something else that doesn't line up, they look 

18 at that type of information.

19 MR. FARVER: But no one --

20 MR. SIEBERT: And that's on the 

21 process in the procedure.

22 MR. FARVER: What got me going on 
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1 that was that you said that they'll make sure 

2 that the IREP total dose equals the total dose 

3 in the DR report.

4 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

5 MR. FARVER: Yes.

6 MR. SIEBERT: Right. It's one of 

7 the steps. And same thing in final QC. And I 

8 know your next question is, well then how can 

9 it ever happen?

10 MR. FARVER: Well let's get to 

11 that.

12 MR. SIEBERT: Which is a valid 

13 question. And the question -- I can't answer 

14 that specifically, because they do look at 

15 that information, that you check that and 

16 verify it.

17 And I see -- Whenever it gets 

18 returned to a dose reconstructor, as a dose 

19 reconstructor manager I see the returns. So I 

20 know they're doing it and they're catching it.

21 MR. FARVER: But there's a form or 

22 something they check off saying they looked at 
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1 it?

2 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. They follow 

3 the process. As I said, there's a procedure 

4 for that. And there's a form. And that's all 

5 kept documented.

6 MR. FARVER: I think that's 

7 happened before, where those two numbers 

8 haven't matched.

9 MR. SIEBERT: Yes.

10 MR. FARVER: I don't, can't think 

11 of any case offhand. But I think it's 

12 happened. So if that does happen in the 

13 future, you should be able to go back and say, 

14 okay well you've had all these people look at 

15 it. They've all checked off that it matched 

16 up. But it didn't.

17 MR. SIEBERT: Right. And the only 

18 thing I can't control -- And I'm not throwing 

19 my client under the bus. This is all just 

20 checks within our house.

21 MR. FARVER: Yes.

22 MR. SIEBERT: This is before DCAS 
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1 or DOL or anybody else deals with the case. 

2 So --

3 MR. FARVER: Well, I was thinking 

4 of them too.

5 MR. SIEBERT: I can just state to 

6 that, this is all we're covering is our side 

7 of the coin.

8 MR. FARVER: Right. But then they 

9 go and they look at it. And they should be 

10 reviewing very similar items.

11 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

12 MR. FARVER: Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Procedure 98? 

14 Is that what you said? I'm looking at the 

15 transcript.

16 MR. SIEBERT: That sounds right.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, it says --

18 (Simultaneous speakers.)

19 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, it's Procedure 

20 98, you're right.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- from Form 59 

22 for the IQC. It's all out of Procedure 98, it 
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1 says.

2 MR. FARVER: Procedure 98.

3 MEMBER MUNN: But 94 is the V&V 

4 process for the two experiments.

5 MR. SIEBERT: That's why it 

6 sounded familiar to me.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Right.

8 MR. STIVER: Scott, would it be 

9 possible to get a copy of that presentation?

10 MR. SIEBERT: Sure.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, that would 

12 be easy.

13 MR. KATZ: What was requested? A 

14 copy of the --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: A copy of the -

16 -

17 MR. SIEBERT: Of this enclosure.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Hey, Wanda, did 

19 the Procedures Subcommittee review Procedure 

20 98? I imagine you guys --

21 MEMBER MUNN: I'm not sure about 

22 98. We've done -- 94's been on the Board's. 
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1 98's initial --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And take a 

3 quick look at the --

4 MEMBER MUNN: -- QC, tech editing 

5 and final QC of the DR reports.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Just curious.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And while she's 

8 looking for that one, you used the term peer 

9 review feedback form. Is that 59, I mean 41 

10 or 42? One of those?

11 MR. SIEBERT: We'll hit those a 

12 little bit further along here.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

14 MR. SIEBERT: But to fill space, 

15 yes. Form 41 is the checklist. Form 42 is 

16 where the peer reviewer signs that they 

17 followed all the things. And that's what we 

18 keep as a specific record.

19 And then the peer review feedback 

20 log is what we're filling out as peer 

21 reviewers. So that's going into the new data 

22 base for tracking our peer review comments.
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1 MR. STIVER: You've not reviewed 

2 98? It's out of the system here?

3 MEMBER MUNN: No. I'm not seeing 

4 findings.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And there is no 

6 Form 59, is there?

7 MR. SIEBERT: Correct. That's a 

8 procedure. Fifty-nine is --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The last 

10 transcript says Form 59.

11 MR. STIVER: Just go to the 

12 procedures filter. Page 2, it should be the 

13 very last one. Initial QC, technical editing, 

14 and final QC.

15 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I see that.

16 MR. STIVER: Showing no findings 

17 there as well.

18 MEMBER MUNN: No findings to 

19 display.

20 MR. STIVER: At least none at this 

21 point.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So we haven't 
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1 reviewed 98 yet?

2 MEMBER MUNN: No.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

4 MR. SIEBERT: Good? Okay. So the 

5 process. And this is what I know you guys 

6 were interested in the last time we talked 

7 about it, how it developed over time.

8 Back in 2003, we had an initial 

9 peer review checklist. I had to dig through 

10 my documents. Interestingly enough, it's the 

11 first month I was working on the project. I 

12 created one, and that kind of developed from 

13 that point on. So we were lucky that I have a 

14 copy of that originally. And it was just a 

15 one-page guidance document for myself. But 

16 then I shared it with the rest of the dose 

17 reconstructors at the time.

18 And it was just a simple checklist 

19 of verifying administrative information, 

20 cancer code and diagnosis date, and things in 

21 the report, things in the IMBA runs, things in 

22 the IREP runs.
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1 And then generally at the end 

2 checking, verifying the CATI is incorporated 

3 if it was available, and verifying the OCAS 

4 comments were addressed if we had a rework, 

5 things like that.

6 So this is the very earliest form 

7 that I could track down. I know I was 

8 personally was using it, and then we spread it 

9 out. So that was 2003. And if you look at 

10 it, the germ of all the things that follow 

11 really start right there.

12 Overestimate, underestimate, 

13 verifying radionuclides, no death certificate 

14 reference if the person is still alive. 

15 That's a way to annoy somebody. 

16 (Laughter.)

17 And it put that on there at that 

18 time because -- and this is really how we 

19 developed -- we don't put discussions of death 

20 certificates in there anymore, because that's 

21 exactly what it was. But originally DOL 

22 determined the organ of the cancer of interest 
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1 only from a death certificate. We had that in 

2 the report, but we changed that.

3 And then in 2005, that's when we 

4 created Procedure 59, which is the peer review 

5 of dose reconstructions. And also Form 41 and 

6 42 came along with that, which is the 

7 checklist. It was issued in January of 2005.

8 And then we revised it right 

9 before Procedure 59 came out. Just some 

10 additional minor changes to add some things in 

11 for technical review and copy edit type stuff.

12 And when the peer reviewer was 

13 done, the peer reviewers would communicate 

14 with the dose reconstructors and DR group 

15 managers for correction purposes for the dose 

16 reconstructors. And also to give the DR 

17 managers information as to errors that they 

18 might be seeing repeated.

19 So even though we weren't tracking 

20 the specific errors on a one by one basis in a 

21 database at the time, the group managers were 

22 tracking with the peer reviewers, what are you 
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1 seeing? And we would handle those things and 

2 get that information out. So it was a little 

3 less formal at the time. And then I --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Were you 

5 collecting that data anyway?

6 MR. SIEBERT: We were not.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No.

8 MR. SIEBERT: And the checklist, 

9 I'll just talk to it real quick. But I know 

10 you guys have seen this numerous times.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Some of us 

12 haven't.

13 MR. SIEBERT: Oh, okay. Well, 

14 these are always -- I'd be happy to show it 

15 to you right now.

16 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right, well, 

17 you are. But could you also send that along 

18 with the --

19 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, forms review.

20 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: --

21 presentation.

22 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, Form 41.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That would be 

2 really helpful.

3 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, I'll just send 

4 you the whole thing.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Great.

6 MR. SIEBERT: Get that over to 

7 Grady. But as you see when we walk, step 

8 through this, we started getting a little more 

9 specific on photon, neutron, missed photon, 

10 missed neutron, breaking out some of the 

11 things that we were seeing in the dose 

12 reconstruction reports, as opposed to just: 

13 "Is external handled okay?" Checkmark.

14 Now we were breaking down these 

15 specific pieces. Missed dose application, 

16 IREP total external dose, and then pulling in 

17 internal dose. Were all the positive bioassay 

18 samples considered, all the radionuclides? 

19 We've dealt with this before. IREP summary, 

20 input versus summary.

21 And this is comparisons of the 

22 input, the IREP input sheet, which is the 
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1 Excel spreadsheet, and the IREP output sheet, 

2 which comes out of the IREP program. Just 

3 verification that the number of rows of

4 exposure is worked out, and so on and so 

5 forth.

6 That's really something IQC does a 

7 lot of that. So the peer reviewer looks at 

8 that information. But it is also reviewed in 

9 Procedure 98. That happens as well.

10 Is it a skin case? If it is, do 

11 we have ethnicity? And is it matching in 

12 NOCTS? A lung case, do we have smoking 

13 history? Does it match NOCTS?

14 And then discussion on cover 

15 sheets. We found this portion became rather 

16 onerous to fill out. We would be spitting 

17 back what the deep dose, shallow dose and 

18 neutron dose for each year was. It was put in 

19 here.

20 If you had a complicated case and 

21 you actually needed to deal with this 

22 information, you could put it in here and do 
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1 the comparisons to verify it. Oftentimes our 

2 tools have the information in it. So we can 

3 do the comparisons within the tool itself.

4 And then the copy edit stuff. Do 

5 you have the right site name, employment 

6 dates, cancer description, all that wonderful 

7 stuff, names, work locations, internal dose? 

8 Basically, you know, the eight-page form that 

9 we have. And you'll be seeing that as well.

10 So we brought that along in 2005. 

11 We also brought Form 42, which is the peer 

12 review declaration. This was issued the same 

13 time. The peer reviewer signs and dates that 

14 the peer review is complete. And it serves as 

15 a record; we maintain it electronically. And 

16 we have those as well. That's what it looks 

17 like.

18 And it's just documenting that we 

19 did Claim Number X in accordance to the 

20 procedure, the revision of Procedure 59, and 

21 which version of Form 41. And "to the best of 

22 my ability, I determined it meets the 
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1 requirements." And it's signed and dated.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: How many of 

3 those does a person peer review a day?

4 MR. SIEBERT: It would depend on 

5 the peer reviewer. You could easily do one or 

6 two in a day, depending on the type of claim. 

7 Some take multiple days to do, if it's a 

8 complicated case.

9 Some that are relatively 

10 straightforward, they may be able to do, you 

11 know, five, six, seven in a day. If it's 

12 something like, let's say it's an AWE, where 

13 there is an SEC during the time frame. So 

14 there's nothing we can assign except for 

15 medical X-rays. Those are relatively 

16 straightforward to peer review. So you may be 

17 able to get a bunch of them in.

18 But for an actual full case, we 

19 kind of work under a rule of thumb that a peer 

20 review should take about half as much time as 

21 the dose reconstruction took to finish. 

22 Because you need to pull all the same 
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1 information. 

2 You may not be making the same decision making 

3 process.

4 But you should still be reviewing 

5 all the documentation in the DOL files and DOE 

6 files, and so on and so forth. And then last 

7 year, we hit the PR feedback tracking, because 

8 we were discussing a lot of things in here.

9 And we decided that we want to be 

10 able to start tracking that information as 

11 well. A little bit better than we were, or 

12 tracking it at all specifically. We 

13 implemented it in June of last year.

14 We had 14 issue categories and the 

15 tracking in the spreadsheet. So the log 

16 looked like that last year. And those are the 

17 14 categories: general external approach, 

18 measured, missed external, coworker, ambient 

19 medical, very generic categories to put the 

20 things into. And then we pulled it into the 

21 Excel spreadsheet.

22 And a couple of things -- I don't 
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1 know how well you can see this. If you look 

2 down at this one down here. When we switched 

3 over from peer reviewers just sending a quick 

4 email message saying, "Here's some of the 

5 things that I saw," or "Great job."

6 Once we started using a log and 

7 putting things in here, we had to work on 

8 getting peer reviewers not to be as nice, 

9 which was kind of scary. Because oftentimes 

10 the peer reviewer would say, "You handled this 

11 great. You did this fine, you did this fine."

12 And they'd put on a form, such as 

13 the external approach, overestimating applied 

14 correctly, doses calculated correctly, applied 

15 correctly, and so on. It's great information 

16 to have.

17 But the problem is, in tracking 

18 peer review feedback if we're looking at just 

19 generic numbers, it looks like that case has 

20 one, two, three, four, five, six comments just 

21 on that portion right there.

22 Whereas, all the comments really 
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1 are, "Everything's great." So we had to do a 

2 little bit of getting people acclimated to do 

3 that. And it just continued on.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So you track 

5 by date. But is this tied to a case, to a 

6 dose reviewer, and to a peer reviewer?

7 MR. SIEBERT: It's tied to a claim 

8 number. Because we have that information. We 

9 tie it to the claim number. Because 

10 otherwise, you know, obviously, it's specific 

11 to a claim. We have to tie it back to a 

12 claim.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It doesn't 

14 lend itself to stepping back to see if there 

15 are problems coming from a particular 

16 individual?

17 MR. SIEBERT: Correct. We don't 

18 tie that specifically. Because what we're 

19 doing, we're tracking this information for a 

20 systematic -- we're looking for a systematic -

21 - Are we seeing systematic errors? That's 

22 why we're tracking the system. So yes, it's 
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1 tied to claim number, but not any individual. 

2 That is --

3 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Why?

4 MR. SIEBERT: That is how we set 

5 up the system. It's systematic.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Can you 

7 imagine problems which would arise because one 

8 person working in the organization is having a 

9 problem doing some task?

10 MR. SIEBERT: We wouldn't need 

11 this information right here to find that out. 

12 The peer reviewers let me know. As a manager 

13 I know what's going on with my folks.

14 MS. LIN: So are you concerned 

15 that this system should be set up as almost 

16 like tied to a performance evaluation?

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No, you know, 

18 I could imagine a report that says, you know, 

19 overall quality is improving. In these areas 

20 it's doing better. In these areas it's doing 

21 worse. There are, we've identified -- you 

22 know.
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1 This all gets back to the same 

2 question of: how do you document that people 

3 are doing well, that the system's doing well, 

4 that there's progress every year? And I could 

5 imagine multiple ways in which you would want 

6 to describe that. And this is a step towards 

7 one of those.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, David, I 

9 think with respect to your question: should 

10 the dose reconstructor's name be tracked in 

11 this fashion? What I probably would agree to 

12 is that the person doing that reviewing will 

13 know.

14 Because they know the dose 

15 reconstructor that you're looking at, whether 

16 it's on this form or not. They will know if a 

17 particular dose reconstructor is causing 

18 problems and not doing a very good job. And 

19 so the personnel management aspect of this, 

20 the personnel performance management aspect is 

21 handled apart from that.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, that's 
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1 great. I mean --

2 MR. FARVER: But you can also tie 

3 it back to site.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, I was 

5 thinking that.

6 MR. FARVER: See if there's 

7 problems at a site, which could be in the 

8 documentation, could be anything.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

10 MR. FARVER: Something might be 

11 confusing the dose reconstructors.

12 MR. SIEBERT: At this point we're 

13 not tracking at that level.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because it 

15 doesn't jump out. If you just have a case 

16 number --

17 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- you don't 

19 see that, yes.

20 MR. SIEBERT: Well, and once 

21 again, it's not there's 400 million people 

22 working on it. You know, you'll have a site, 
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1 Rocky Flats, where there's really five to 

2 seven dose reconstructors who are really 

3 working that site, who know it very well.

4 And only a couple of peer 

5 reviewers, including the site lead. So it 

6 really narrows down to who sees specific 

7 information. So those type of things are --

8 You know, we have had times in the 

9 past where peer reviewers will say, "Okay, we 

10 are seeing people misconstruing how to deal 

11 with neutron dose reconstruction stuff at 

12 Rocky Flats." And we've gone back and 

13 corrected that.

14 But we're not tracking that 

15 specifically. So still back in last year, we 

16 put the database -- since we were finding the 

17 Excel wasn't quite as flexible for us, we had 

18 a database written for us. Put that 

19 information in starting September.

20 We then put the feedback and 

21 return types in the same 14 issue categories. 

22 And then we started looking at the data a 
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1 little bit more organically as a group.

2 And that's where, after a while, 

3 we started finding that with dose 

4 reconstructors, or peer reviewers making the 

5 comment of "Great job, you did this," it kind 

6 of skewed what our actual feedback looked 

7 like. So we had to kind of nip that in the 

8 bud, and look at it overall.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Now wait, can 

10 you go back to this one too?

11 MR. SIEBERT: Yes.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The change from 

13 June to September of 2011, what was --

14 MR. SIEBERT: In June, we were 

15 doing it on the Excel spreadsheet.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

17 MR. SIEBERT: That's how we were 

18 tracking.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And then you 

20 went over to --

21 MR. SIEBERT: And then while we 

22 were actually doing the Excel spreadsheet, 
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1 while we got the database in place is what it 

2 really --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The categories 

4 didn't change?

5 MR. SIEBERT: Categories, same 14 

6 categories.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. 

8 Okay, okay.

9 MR. SIEBERT: And then this year 

10 we've updated, partially in response to some 

11 of the things we discussed in here, because I 

12 found them very helpful. We revised it yet 

13 again.

14 And now our peer review comments 

15 are organized by type of return, whether 

16 there's just feedback, as I mentioned before. 

17 Not an error, but here's something else you 

18 might have considered, or wording, or 

19 something like that.

20 Minor error, which is error: no 

21 return required. Maybe a typo, things like 

22 that. Or error, a return is required. 
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1 There's a substantive error of some sort the 

2 dose reconstructor needs to fix.

3 We don't want peer reviewers 

4 fixing substantive errors. Because there is 

5 not another review until it gets to NIOSH. 

6 And we don't want them to be that reviewer 

7 that catches that.

8 So those are the three categories, 

9 the types that we have, which you notice in 

10 the old one it was just feedback and return. 

11 We're trying to break that out a little bit 

12 more. And instead of 14 categories, now we've 

13 tracked it into much more specific categories.

14 This is what the feedback log 

15 looks like. It's pretty generic, because you 

16 fill out the comment category and the feedback 

17 type. We do have a checkbox for no comments 

18 whatsoever. And also a checkbox for no 

19 comments whatsoever. And also a checkbox if 

20 it's returned to the dose reconstructor.

21 And this information in the log is 

22 placed in the database. The categories we 
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1 have here, 14 didn't sound good, so we went to 

2 A through J, which is one, two, three, four, 

3 five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. So we've 

4 broken it into ten major categories.

5 And each of those -- actually 

6 there are sub-categories involved in each of 

7 those. I believe I mentioned at the last 

8 meeting that we were putting this in place.

9 So with these categorizations, it 

10 would be more consistent across peer reviews 

11 and returns that we get from DCAS from 

12 technical returns, and other returns, and also 

13 comments eventually that we get from the Sub14 committee, things like that.

15 So we'd be a little consistent 

16 across all three levels. That's why you see A 

17 and B in the peer review discussion here. 

18 Non-technical returns and no error 

19 misinterpretation of the approach.

20 Those are really things we use for 

21 when DOL or DCAS returns claims back to us. 

22 So peer reviewers don't ever use those. But 
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1 we wanted to have all the same categories for 

2 the different types of returns.

3 Non-technical returns would be 

4 there's a new cancer or things like that. And 

5 then non-technical report issues, policy 

6 guidance issues, that may be application of 

7 the SEC, things like that.

8 Data collection issues, where we 

9 see inconsistency or data's missing, or 

10 additional data, things like that. Claimant 

11 interview, claimant-provided documentation, 

12 external, internal tools, and IREP.

13 So we'll put these categories into 

14 all these sub-groups. And to give you an 

15 idea, I've pulled the actual form. There are 

16 sub-categories, and I will do this too. What 

17 the sub-categories are for, say, non-technical 

18 report.

19 Report language clarification 

20 preference, typographical error, formatting 

21 issue, incomplete electronic submittal, 

22 references not cited, things like that. So we 
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1 broke these down into smaller categories that 

2 made sense.

3 Now we tried not to get into so 

4 many categories that it wouldn't give us 

5 information, which is a balancing act, as you 

6 guys, I'm sure, all know.

7 So before I show you what we've 

8 been doing with the new database, I know some 

9 of the questions had revolved around: well, 

10 how did you learn from the peer review process 

11 if you weren't documenting it as such? So I 

12 wanted to show you some of the lessons learned 

13 during the PR process over time.

14 I broke it down into before we had 

15 Procedure 59. So 2003 to 2005. After we had 

16 that, but before we had the feedback tracking.

17 And then since we've had the feedback 

18 tracking. Whether it was in the old database 

19 or the new database.

20 And all I did was pull the -- I 

21 talked to Joel Arana, the other dose 

22 reconstructor group manager. And he and I 
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1 looked at our old agendas from all our group 

2 meetings that we've had. And just pulled 

3 comments that peer reviewers had told us, that 

4 we put in our agendas for training purposes.

5 For example, early on, we included 

6 copies of all tools using the assessment. You 

7 would think you wouldn't have to tell people 

8 that. But, you know, in 2004 we did. We

9 copied data in the tritium tool, using the 

10 Special Paste option instead of the Common 

11 Paste, so we didn't overwrite the formulas 

12 that are in there. The dose reconstruction 

13 report should allow the peer reviewer, the 

14 OCAS reviewer and other HPs to reproduce your 

15 results of the assessment.

16 State clearly all your assumptions 

17 and reasoning. Because we had had some peer 

18 reviewer saying, "I can't figure out what this 

19 person did. And it looks okay, but I'm not 

20 exactly sure of the decision making process." 

21 Same stuff we've dealt with here over time.

22 From 2005 through '10, after we 
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1 started the peer review process, the procedure 

2 itself, but before we were tracking the 

3 comments. Ensure the internal/external 

4 uncertainty descriptions or any uncertainty 

5 section.

6 There had been quite a few DRs 

7 come to PR with only external uncertainty 

8 defining in the section. This, actually 

9 because we had this comment from some peer 

10 reviewers, we determined it was a template 

11 issue.

12 So we updated the template to 

13 specifically get internal uncertainties 

14 instead of expecting the dose reconstructor to 

15 add them as well. So it's not just in the 

16 dose reconstruction process. But it may have 

17 some feedback to the tools as well.

18 Read the report, read the report, 

19 read the report. I love repeating things. 

20 We've been seeing some wording such as "doses 

21 were overestimated using efficiency methods in 

22 compensable claims." Obviously, you can't 
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1 overestimate a compensable claim.

2 Back in 2006, we mentioned this to 

3 the DRs again. Like specifically the bottom, 

4 don't assume that the template is correct for 

5 your specific claim. Read it completely after 

6 you're done. 

7 All pretty common-sense stuff, but 

8 things we were seeing in peer review that we 

9 wanted to make sure dose reconstructors were 

10 reminded of. Different DRs for the wrong 

11 cancer organ had been cited in the report. 

12 And this was a cutting and pasting issue.

13 If you look at 2007, I know we 

14 discussed a lot in here, some of the cutting 

15 and pasting. You know, we were trying to be 

16 efficient with cutting and pasting and reusing 

17 paragraphs. But sometimes, dose reconstructors 

18 would miss the organ of interest in changing 

19 it to the correct one. And it would, you 

20 know, get to peer review.

21 This is when we started changing 

22 the templates more to be fed in by the tools, 
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1 and becoming a little bit more automated in 

2 the process. Be extra diligent when dealing 

3 with multi-cancer claims to ensure the IREP 

4 sheets and summaries are correct prior to 

5 submittal.

6 This came up -- I remember this. 

7 2009, that's scary. I remember this. There 

8 was a claim with, I believe it was 51 cancers.

9 And they're almost all skin cancers.

10 And when you're dealing with that, 

11 trying to keep all the IREP sheets and 

12 summaries clear and straightforward is a 

13 chore. So they have a numbering process, and 

14 so on and so forth.

15 And then what we've been doing 

16 since, doing your own reference checks. And I 

17 just basically walked an easy way for peer 

18 reviewers to do an external reference check, 

19 and dose reconstructors should be doing the

20 same thing.

21 This actually came down -- some 

22 peer reviewers were doing this reference 
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1 check. They'd print out -- and this is all 

2 assessed.

3 They'd print out the final pages 

4 of the dose reconstruction report that had the 

5 references, and had it in their hand while 

6 they were reviewing the actual dose 

7 reconstruction.

8 And just check things off as they 

9 ran into it, to make sure all the references 

10 were there or there weren't additional 

11 references in there. Pretty straightforward 

12 kind of thing. But peer reviewers were doing 

13 it.

14 And we figured, well, if peer 

15 reviewers are doing it, let's just have the 

16 dose reconstructors look at doing the same 

17 thing.

18 This came up. Don't rely on a 

19 DCAS return sheet, the Form 35s, to determine 

20 all the issues. Always go back to the source 

21 documents.

22 We ran into a couple during peer 
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1 review where it came back on a Form 35 from 

2 DCAS, saying there was an additional skin 

3 cancer. But there was also some other changes 

4 that DOL had made that weren't called out on 

5 that sheet. They were in NOCTS, but there 

6 were other changes. But they weren't 

7 necessarily specifically called out on that 

8 sheet.

9 So we just reminded DRs, as they 

10 always should go back to the ANRSD, go back to 

11 the DOL, DOE files, all that kind of stuff. 

12 And just remind them, if it's near or after 

13 the last time the claim was worked on, it's a 

14 good chance it's new. Look at it.

15 And more recently we'd run into 

16 this as we get more and more SECs at various 

17 sites that we're dealing with. We're watching 

18 the wording on overestimate language applied 

19 in a non-comp claim and an SEC period.

20 Because during an SEC review, you 

21 cannot do an overestimate. It's only a 

22 partial. You can overestimate what you can 
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1 assess. But you can't call the whole thing an 

2 overestimate. We've run into this here as 

3 well.

4 And as we dealt with more SEC 

5 sites, we wanted to make sure that was very 

6 clear to the dose reconstructors to be 

7 thinking about that, as more claims ran into 

8 that SEC issue.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I don't quite 

10 understand.

11 MR. SIEBERT: Okay.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Could you 

13 clarify --

14 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. I'd be happy 

15 to. When a site goes into an SEC status, and 

16 people who have the SEC cancers are paid, the 

17 people who do not have those cancers, they 

18 have different cancers, we still assess them.

19 There may be something, say 

20 thorium, that we can't assess, because there's 

21 not enough data. So we will state in the SEC 

22 section that we cannot assess thorium. And 
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1 when we do the dose reconstruction we may be 

2 able -

3 Everything else we may be able to 

4 use OTIB-18 to overestimate internal, say for 

5 a prostate cancer, or something like that. We 

6 can't call the whole thing an overestimate. 

7 Because the SEC clearly states we can't 

8 overestimate thorium, because we can't bound.

9 So we have to be very careful with 

10 our wording that it's a partial assessment. It 

11 may overestimate everything we can assess. 

12 But it doesn't overestimate the whole case.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Thanks.

14 MR. SIEBERT: Sure. It's not 

15 necessarily straightforward thinking here. 

16 And the last thing I want to do, and I'll 

17 leave it to you if you want me to run through 

18 a couple of the reports on the live version. 

19 Do you want to take a break beforehand? Do 

20 you want to --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. Why don't 

22 we -- I think it's a good break point.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: Okay. It shouldn't 

2 take too long. But in case there's questions.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let's take --

4 back at quarter of? You can digest this, and 

5 then be ready for the live version.

6 MR. KATZ: I'm putting the phone

7 on mute. And I think, Dr. Poston, have you 

8 been with us? He had a class to teach earlier 

9 this morning, which was why he missed it, but 

10 he was supposed to be on the list about 

11 quarter past nine.

12 (Whereupon, the meeting in the 

13 above-entitled matter went off the record at 

14 10:33 a.m. and resumed at 10:53 a.m.)

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So Scott was 

16 about to take us live.

17 MR. SIEBERT: Live, large, and in 

18 charge. This is what we have as the live 

19 version of our database for our PR Comments. 

20 Since we've just created the new one with all 

21 the categorizations, it's only been live since 

22 mid-September.
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1 And we've been building the 

2 different reports, and so on and so forth. So 

3 everything I'm going to show you is what we've 

4 done so far. And we're still coming up with 

5 ideas of things that's useful, and so and so 

6 forth.

7 So that you have an example of a 

8 relatively reasonable period, we actually went 

9 back into the old comment database, pulled all 

10 the comments from August 1st, through the 

11 beginning of September when this went live, 

12 and back-fitted those to the new categories, 

13 so that we'd have August, September, and 

14 October. We'd have a full quarter for you 

15 guys to see here. So I'll pull up the detail 

16 report.

17 And this is what it'll look like. 

18 We can pick our time frames, our dates, and so 

19 on and so forth.

20 But this is just pulling in our 

21 data into specialist, puts this in and puts in 

22 the claim number, the version, the date that 
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1 the peer review was completed, the type of 

2 comment, category, description, and a little 

3 bit of text as to what the actual comment is. 

4 And it's all the stuff that's off that other 

5 form that we discussed. So it's not really --

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So you've got 

7 multiple lines per signing?

8 MR. SIEBERT: Correct.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And the next 

10 column, what's that mean, the version --

11 MR. SIEBERT: The version and 

12 revision are: the version is the last time it 

13 went over to DOL. And the revision is the 

14 last time it went over to NIOSH.

15 From our point of view, you can 

16 have a Rev 0, which means it's never been to 

17 NIOSH for review, and it's never been to DOL. 

18 Or we may actually have a Revision 1, Version 

19 0, Revision 1, where it has not gotten to DOL 

20 yet. But NIOSH had a comment for us.

21 And we have a new revision that we 

22 made that comment, we made that change. And 
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1 then it's approved and goes to DOL. The next 

2 time DOL returns it to NIOSH, it becomes 

3 Version 1.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So the next 

5 claim there went to NIOSH five times?

6 MR. SIEBERT: It may have gone 

7 back and forth five times.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Now on that --

9 MR. SIEBERT: Maybe.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, that's a 

11 function of our system. Version and Rev are a 

12 functions of our system. So when you go above 

13 Version 1, that means DOL has returned it to 

14 us.

15 So in other words, we have sent 

16 DOL Version 1. They returned it to us and it 

17 becomes Version 2. So when we send it over to 

18 ORAU, we get it back. We send it to ORAU.

19 That increments that revision, the 

20 first one. So it's not like it's been back 

21 and forth. They're probably on their second 

22 time preparing it back to us. Because --
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1 MR. SIEBERT: You won't see 

2 versions to Rev 0.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: Those revision and 

4 version numbers are incremented by tasks in 

5 NOCTS, as the claim is manipulated through 

6 NOCTS. And since a Version 2, or higher, 

7 comes to us first, and then we send it back 

8 through this system over to ORAU, that 

9 increments the revision at that point.

10 So don't put a lot of stock in 

11 revision numbers for higher versions. It's 

12 not like it's been back to us five times.

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right. So it's 

14 one, three, five, seven.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: Something like 

16 that.

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And 2.1 means 

18 that you sent it over, or they sent it over, 

19 and you're awaiting action.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: The first 

22 number --
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: 2.1 would be our 

2 movement to them.

3 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's right, 

4 your movement.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Because Version 2, 

6 that's the first movement in the system, is us 

7 to them.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Good, okay, 

9 thanks.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I think. I'm not 

11 entirely sure of the incrementing. But the 

12 incrementing is off on the higher versions 

13 because of that earlier step.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, okay.

15 MR. CALHOUN: And so many things 

16 can cause that to go up.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

18 MR. CALHOUN: Whether it's a 

19 modification or a re-work from Labor. Labor 

20 drives more of that than we do.

21 MR. SIEBERT: And then from that 

22 point, let's look at some of the overall.
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1 These are percentages of the types 

2 of comments we've had in peer review over 

3 time, on a monthly basis: August, September, 

4 October, and we're in the middle of November, 

5 almost finishing that up. We see the key down 

6 there. And right at the top is the error 

7 return, which means there was a substantive 

8 error that needed to be addressed by the dose 

9 reconstructor. And this would represent a 

10 specific claim.

11 Yellow means it had feedback, and 

12 at least one error that didn't necessarily 

13 necessitate return to the dose reconstructor.

14 The green ones are feedback only. 

15 It means there were no errors, but they may 

16 have had a comment of some sort. And then 

17 blue is: there were no comments whatsoever.

18 So the reason we put this together 

19 like this is: if you look at blue and green 

20 together, basically, those are the ones where 

21 there's no errors whatsoever. This is on a 

22 percentage basis.
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1 And red are the ones where we need 

2 to look into it a little bit more. But over 

3 time, and obviously we have a very small 

4 selection for the Supporter Plus. But we're 

5 working on getting people understanding the 

6 process and working through it.

7 So for the overall error rate, it 

8 seems to be coming down. But once again, with 

9 a quarter's work, it's hard to really say what 

10 you're really seeing.

11 We did that on a percent basis. 

12 And we also did it on a total basis. So this 

13 would be action by number of claims, as 

14 opposed to percentages breakdown, same color 

15 in the scheme. So we can track that, based on 

16 if we have more claims less than, so on and so 

17 forth.

18 MS. LIN: Is there a reason why 

19 you didn't have it in a pie chart?

20 MR. SIEBERT: Because pie charts 

21 were making me too hungry. Because we save 

22 the pie charts for fun stuff.
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1 (Laughter.)

2 MR. SIEBERT: And this one right 

3 here -- let me make this an actual full 

4 quarter. So starting August 1st, and I think 

5 the weekend of October, okay.

6 These are all the Level 1 

7 categories, the major ten categories that we 

8 were talking about. As you can see -- as you 

9 probably cannot see, but the green -- and it 

10 looks really pretty and green on my screen.

11 The gross olive green up there is 

12 the non-technical report issues. And as you 

13 can tell, that's the lion's share of things 

14 that we're seeing. Then the policy guidance 

15 issues, data collection issues, so we can 

16 really focus in and see where the largest 

17 amount of comments are coming.

18 And when we pulled the old 

19 database, we don't have the reports for that 

20 online any more, but when we pulled the old 

21 database it was almost always identical, that 

22 most of the comments were report-type 
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1 comments, misspellings, typos, wording.

2 And it may be numbers need to be 

3 corrected and things, but specifically in the 

4 report. So that's where we're finding most of 

5 the issues.

6 And then, if we want to drill down 

7 a little bit further into reports, we can pull 

8 down -- let me get the date range. We can 

9 drill down here at the Level 2, the next 

10 levels down, for the technical reports.

11 And this shows that the majority 

12 of them are report language clarification 

13 preference. Maybe the use of the glove box 

14 factor could have been explained a little bit 

15 better. So they made a suggestion on how to 

16 make that wording, things like that. So once 

17 again, the lion's share is language and 

18 clarification, preference type stuff.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, this is 

20 Level 2.

21 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. This is

22 pulling down the next level under non-
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1 technical reports.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And can you 

3 just show us one of the other ones, like 

4 internal dose or external dose?

5 MR. SIEBERT: Sure.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: One or two.

7 MR. SIEBERT: Here's internal, 

8 there's Pac-Man. And the green is, Number 3 

9 is: "incorrect DR methodology used for 

10 determining dose."

11 And then there's actually a 

12 breakdown under those. Internal and external, 

13 there's additional levels which we didn't 

14 drill down to pulling these in the charts. 

15 Because there was not enough information to 

16 really be relevant. But we can pull it if we 

17 need to. But we didn't do that.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Just out of 

19 curiosity -- oh, you don't have that on the 

20 charts like that. I was just curious what the 

21 next levels were, below like this level.

22 MR. SIEBERT: Like what they 
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1 represent, what would be the options?

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. What are 

3 the categories for that? That was on your 

4 sheet before, I think.

5 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. That's okay. 

6 I can pull that up here. So for internal, 

7 under three, there's internal fitted dose, 

8 missed dose, unmonitored, and environmental. 

9 So any of those would be rolled up into three.

10 And the same thing for external. 

11 Here we broke it down into photons, neutrons, 

12 shallow, and then measured, missed, coworker, 

13 ambient, and medical X-ray.

14 So, as I said, a work in progress, 

15 but I believe it's starting to generate the 

16 information that we're wanting to see.

17 Now it looks like external, it's 

18 more spread out. It's not one specific thing 

19 that's really dominating everything. We see 

20 the light blue. Medical X-ray dose.

21 And sometimes we'll see that, 

22 honestly, in a time where we're changing 
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1 processes. For example, during this time 

2 frame -- and that may be what a lot of this 

3 medical X-ray dose stuff is -- during this 

4 time frame is when DCAS gave the official word 

5 to us that we were going to start using best 

6 estimate information for medical X-rays, and 

7 zeros for missed dose for badging, for 

8 external.

9 MR. CALHOUN: As a result of this 

10 meeting?

11 MR. SIEBERT: As a result of this 

12 meeting. So when we implemented that, claims 

13 that were presently in the process, a lot of 

14 those got kicked back to the dose 

15 reconstructor to change that to meet that 

16 requirement.

17 So some of these may be a process 

18 issue that we're dealing with at that time, so 

19 we'll have to drill down and get the 

20 information on that.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Do you correct 

22 organ selected? There seems to be a large 
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1 category.

2 MR. SIEBERT: It's this one right 

3 here.

4 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Oh, I'm sorry, 

5 no, no, the one above it.

6 MR. SIEBERT: This one right here, 

7 that's the medical X-ray.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

9 MR. SIEBERT: I'd like everybody 

10 to look at my screen over here. Yes. This is 

11 the OTIB-5 organ selection.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Okay.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: OTIB-6.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's good.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Five?

16 MR. SIEBERT: It should say five. 

17 It does say five. It's just hard to see. And 

18 then DR methodology for photons and breakdown.

19 So this is, as I said, since it's 

20 only been in progress for the last quarter, I 

21 know Joel and I are really starting to start 

22 to dive into this, to see where these kind of 
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1 things are. So I think it's been very 

2 helpful. It's good for us, kind of tracking 

3 these type of things.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: One of the 

5 things that jumps out, I guess from the 

6 histograms, is 50 percent of the issues or so, 

7 maybe more, are communication, language 

8 issues, it seems like, where you were --

9 MR. SIEBERT: Report issues.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- report 

11 issues. And it's almost like there's two 

12 flavors of issues. There are types of issues 

13 where maybe you would like a senior 

14 experienced dose reconstructor to focus their 

15 time on.

16 And then there's the type of 

17 issues they're probably not the best suited 

18 to -- in a way, they might be. But also a 

19 communications specialist or a technical 

20 editor could also go through and see whether 

21 the information's consistent between two 

22 things and whether the language is expressing 
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1 clearly, flagging places where there's 

2 complicated language, where it could be 

3 clarified.

4 MR. SIEBERT: And the technical 

5 editors would obviously technical edit it, 

6 they do that type of review as well, after the 

7 peer review process, which is part of 

8 Procedure 98. So there's another level of 

9 looking at that.

10 But we still have the peer 

11 reviewers working through that. Because a 

12 technical editor may understand the wording, 

13 what might be more eloquent wording.

14 But they may not necessarily 

15 understand the full technical knowledge of 

16 what the thought process is behind it, such as 

17 when you're talking about NRDP, or --

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You have lots 

19 of things flagged there that seemed like 

20 spelling issues, right? Weren't those --

21 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, there were some 

22 in that area, non-technical issues. You'll 
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1 see some of those. He/she.

2 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right.

3 MR. SIEBERT: Things like that. 

4 And that seems to be the majority of what you 

5 run into.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. I was 

7 just wondering if there was a way to save 

8 their brains for the hard stuff.

9 MR. SIEBERT: Well, the process we 

10 have in place right now is very organic. The 

11 peer reviewer and the dose reconstructor are 

12 intimately involved with the full part of the 

13 case.

14 So I would hesitate to say, to 

15 peer reviewers, "Don't look at wording." But 

16 once again -- and this is something I've 

17 realized over the last week and haven't had a 

18 chance to have our IT folks put in yet -- I'd 

19 like to look at, say, that big olive green 

20 color right there, how many of those were 

21 feedback and how many of those were errors? 

22 Typographical errors versus wording 
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1 suggestion.

2 We haven't pulled out recording 

3 that yet. And we're going to look at it, and 

4 we're going to pull that kind of thing out. 

5 Because every technical writer is going to 

6 have a slightly different style.

7 And realistically, some peer 

8 reviewers are better writers than some dose 

9 reconstructors, and vice versa. So those are 

10 the kind of things that we can, those fall 

11 under feedback.

12 But we can cull those out and look 

13 at them. And if there is some wording that is 

14 more eloquent, we may be able to pull that 

15 into the template, and use that as such. So 

16 we're looking at that kind of stuff as well.

17 But I'd be afraid to have the peer 

18 reviewers not look at the whole report as an 

19 organic portion. Their brains can handle it. 

20 We'll spoon water over them to cool them off.

21 (Laughter.)

22 And that's basically how we're 
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1 looking at that. We're breaking those kind of 

2 things down. I pulled out, I'm not sure how 

3 helpful it is yet, but one of the things I 

4 wanted to look at was an average number of 

5 comments per period.

6 So over each of those months, like 

7 in August, there was about a little over 0.6 

8 comments per peer review. So it's just -- the 

9 total number of peer reviews that were done is 

10 the denominator. And the total number of 

11 comments that we had is the numerator for 

12 this, straight out.

13 And we kind of look at: are there 

14 trends that we're seeing? More comments, less 

15 comments, things like that. Once again, I 

16 don't have them pull it out by feedback and 

17 area. We're looking at doing at that.

18 Let's see what else we put in 

19 here. Peer review comment logs, where there 

20 were no comments at all by month. So it's an 

21 increasing number. And I flagellate the PRs 

22 to make sure it's not because they're being 
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1 lazy, but because they're not finding as much.

2 So those are the kinds of things 

3 we're looking at. And as I said, as Joel and 

4 I see how useful the data is, what we can pull 

5 out there to be pulled into the reports, and 

6 so on.

7 But I have found it very helpful 

8 already. So it's good. And that's where we 

9 are with the live comments tracking and 

10 recording. And that's everything that I have, 

11 and then some. Any comments, questions on 

12 that?

13 MEMBER CLAWSON: Scott, this is 

14 Brad. I think you hit on it, but you've kind 

15 of found this a little bit useful, too, 

16 haven't you?

17 MR. SIEBERT: Sure.

18 MEMBER CLAWSON: Being able to see 

19 where everything's kind of laying out?

20 MR. SIEBERT: Oh, yes. I have 

21 found this helpful, sure. Having additional 

22 data, as long as we have the resources and our 
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1 client wants us to devote the resources to 

2 that, is very helpful. And we're happy to do 

3 so. So, yes.

4 To tell you the truth, so far, and 

5 like I said, with a quarter's worth of 

6 information, I haven't seen anything that 

7 surprised me.

8 As I said, from the old versions, 

9 and even before we started tracking, we knew 

10 that wording was usually the largest issue 

11 that we ran into.

12 And we fixed things. We had 

13 information from peer reviewers that we 

14 amalgamated and gave to the dose 

15 reconstructors during our meeting. So nothing 

16 is a really huge surprise to me. But it has 

17 been good to narrow in on some more specific 

18 things.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It's 

20 satisfying to see the changes. And at least 

21 Board people can see what you believe was the 

22 case.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Which is 

3 important.

4 MR. SIEBERT: And that's it for 

5 me.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I'm just 

7 thinking: where does this Subcommittee go with 

8 this? I think this is useful. The one 

9 thought I had was, when you gave your 

10 presentation, that all those pieces everyone 

11 just can look through the categories 

12 themselves and see if you have any feedback in 

13 that regard. But I think the real powerful 

14 thing is to see in a year or whatever --

15 MR. SIEBERT: What the trends --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- what kind of 

17 trends you'll have. Yes, yes.

18 MR. SIEBERT: And for the 

19 categories --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The sub21 categories --

22 MR. SIEBERT: We tried to pull the 
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1 categories and make them line up with SC&A's 

2 categories somewhat, as much as we could. 

3 Because we wanted to tie that process in down 

4 the road as well. So we're trying to be much 

5 more organic with the whole process.

6 MR. KATZ: So again on this, if 

7 you have Subcommittee Members or SC&A staff, 

8 whatever, but if you have comments on 

9 categories or sub-categories, if you'll at 

10 least copy me, I'll make sure that they all 

11 get to DCAS.

12 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: On the other 

13 hand, if we make too many changes in your 

14 categories, then you can't track them.

15 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, please put some 

16 thought into: what changes do I want to 

17 change?

18 MR. KATZ: And here we're at the 

19 outset, so --

20 (Simultaneous speakers.)

21 MR. SIEBERT: If there's something 

22 huge missing.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It may be 

3 worth the comments coming in at the end of the 

4 year.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I would 

6 ask, not only for Subcommittee Members, but 

7 also SC&A --

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's what I 

9 said.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, I didn't 

11 hear you say that, okay. Just like Scott 

12 said, to look at what you're looking at and 

13 compare it to their categories, and see if 

14 there's any glaring -- you know, if they're 

15 going to work well together, and if there's 

16 anything missing. I think you can probably --

17 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Like I said, I 

18 think you need to stick with these categories 

19 --

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: -- even if 

22 there is disagreement, you could do better if 
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1 you did, or added this, that you should stick 

2 with these for a while so that you can see the 

3 trend.

4 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And then make 

6 a change-over after a year, and then do the 

7 changes. And then you won't have this year to 

8 compare -- then it could be comparable with 

9 this year.

10 MR. FARVER: Would it be helpful 

11 to see like a side-by-side comparison, so you 

12 just know who's looking at what? Would that 

13 be --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: What do you 

15 mean side-by-side?

16 MR. FARVER: Well, in other words, 

17 you take their items that they're looking at, 

18 and you have the items we're looking at.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You're looking 

20 at, right.

21 MR. FARVER: If we just put it 

22 together so you can kind of see and compare 
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1 the things that they're looking for and what -

2 -

3 MR. KATZ: No, you don't need to 

4 do that. If you have comments, though, about 

5 suggested categories, provide them.

6 MR. STIVER: You can do additional 

7 breakdown and look at how that might be 

8 useful.

9 MEMBER MUNN: They look pretty 

10 well thought-out to me.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, they look really 

12 good.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So, Doug, when 

14 you were saying what you look at, you're 

15 talking about SC&A's reviews?

16 MR. FARVER: Yes. Our checklist 

17 for Table 2, I believe.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, Table 2.

19 MR. FARVER: And really, not to 

20 say that one is better than the other, just to 

21 show you what is alike and what is different.

22 MEMBER RICHARDSON: The other 
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1 thing that I was thinking is: the side-by-side 

2 comparison is -- in a year's time NIOSH will 

3 have 50 or 70 of the blind reviews that have 

4 been randomly sampled.

5 And you'll have identified places 

6 where there's more or less concordance or 

7 places where there's disagreements. And 

8 you'll have a report of what you found 

9 internally through the peer review process.

10 Because I'm thinking there's two 

11 ways that you may flag things that go back to 

12 your peer review. One is more things may be 

13 flagged because there's more problems there. 

14 Another one has more things maybe 

15 flagged on areas that the peer reviewer tends 

16 to focus more on. So NIOSH's review is 

17 looking at what's passed through, and fallen 

18 through the cracks, and the peer reviews have 

19 not picked up, I assume.

20 And to see whether those 

21 categories are categories where there's 

22 chronic problems where there's a lot of 
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1 problems coming in to the peer reviewer -- and 

2 they're calling out most of them, but not all 

3 of them -- or whether it's simply a category 

4 or problem that the peer reviewers aren't 

5 focusing on at this time, and they're coming 

6 through and ending up on NIOSH's desk.

7 So to the extent that you can set 

8 those side-by-side, I think it might 

9 understand where, in the flow, those are 

10 coming from. Stu, are the categories such 

11 that that sort of comparison could happen?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, I'd have to 

13 actually go look. Our blind review list 

14 follows relatively close to SC&A's dose 

15 reconstruction review checklist. So it 

16 follows pretty closely to that. I think you 

17 could make some approximations. But I don't 

18 know exactly if it's --

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: No. I don't 

20 think it has to be like everybody uses the 

21 same tool, but to try and figure out the story 

22 about how are things ending up that you're 
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1 finding them in blind reviews?

2 MR. HINNEFELD: If we find 

3 something here, it might be interesting to see 

4 what the peer review history of that case was.

5 I'll leave that to Grady.

6 (Laughter.)

7 MR. HINNEFELD: I think that would 

8 be something we could use, to go back and 

9 study -- or on a case we commented on. It 

10 will not go in a blind review, but we would 

11 re-review or we make a comment on the case. 

12 What has the peer review missed here?

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, anything 

14 else on this issue?

15 I think really the only action 

16 going forward is if we have any major 

17 comments, get them to Ted now, or as soon as 

18 possible. And then, occasionally, I think we 

19 should ask for an update on the Subcommittee.

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I think it's 

21 great, though. You can sort of imagine this 

22 as being where you've got a series of gates in 
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1 place. And we're collecting information on 

2 those and seeing where are these problems that 

3 we've been seeing, tracking them back, and 

4 seeing where there could be an intervention in 

5 the peer review process early on at ORAU to 

6 catch those before they go out the door.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

8 MS. LIN: Mark, couple of things. 

9 So Scott's presentation has a lot of lessons 

10 learned. And those are really the business 

11 information of ORAU, after ten years of 

12 experience as DCAS contractors.

13 So even though we're in the public 

14 meeting, I think the Board Members and SC&A 

15 and people around the table listening in 

16 should be conscious about who they talk about 

17 this information to -- to whom they distribute 

18 this information, or to whom they talk about 

19 this information. Does that make sense?

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

21 MS. LIN: And the second piece of 

22 that is: it's great that SC&A and the Board 
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1 get to look at ORAU's work process. But then 

2 keep in mind that the agency still has to 

3 direct the work of ORAU.

4 And all the comments, all the 

5 revisions, whatever, still has to come from 

6 the client, which is DCAS. And obviously the 

7 agency would need to think about the resources 

8 that they need to spend --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, right.

10 MS. LIN: -- to accommodate the 

11 changes to the Board wanted to make.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's a good 

13 point. We're not advising ORAU, really, we're

14 advising NIOSH. So, yes.

15 MS. LIN: Exactly, so just keep 

16 that in mind while you're making your 

17 suggestions.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, right. 

19 That's fine.

20 MR. KATZ: And I'll be sending 

21 what comments I have to Grady, not to Scott --

22 MR. SIEBERT: I get everything 
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1 from Grady.

2 MR. KATZ: -- about how to 

3 dispense.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay, with that 

5 legal advice, I think we can talk about the 

6 next item before lunch here, at least one 

7 item. SC&A blind reviews.

8 MR. STIVER: Okay, that was ours. 

9 And Kathy Behling is on the line. She is the 

10 author of the blind DR reviews, and also the 

11 comparison that we recently submitted as our 

12 Methods A and B in comparison to NIOSH's 

13 methods. So Kathy, if you would like to lead 

14 out the discussion on that.

15 MS. BEHLING: Okay. Let me just 

16 tell you, the file was -- the date that we 

17 sent this data out was on Tuesday, November 

18 20th. Last Tuesday, we sent the file to 

19 everyone, hopefully.

20 And I will give you a portion of 

21 the title: Draft SC&A-TR-DDR2012, and then the 

22 case number. We also included in that file or 
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1 in that email, the actual first blind dose 

2 reconstruction review.

3 Now, SC&A started, we were tasked 

4 with doing two blind DRs. And I actually went 

5 and made a comparison of two independent 

6 methods that SC&A used.

7 Method A used all of the same 

8 information and spreadsheets that NIOSH uses. 

9 And Method B was more of a manual, should I 

10 say, practical approach. We still used all of 

11 the Technical Basis Documents. But we didn't 

12 use DR tools and that type of thing.

13 Now, I'm going to ask the question 

14 as to whether you would like me to go through 

15 each element of the doses, the reconstructed 

16 doses.

17 I was not one of the dose 

18 reconstructors for either Method A or Method 

19 B. And I'm independently looking at this 

20 comparison and comparing Method A and B to 

21 NIOSH's methods.

22 So I guess, Mark, I need to ask: 
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1 would you like me to go through each of the 

2 elements of the internal and external doses, 

3 or do you want me to go to the summary and 

4 bottom line issues?

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, maybe 

6 just give us the summary first, Kathy. And 

7 then maybe we can go back, if we have 

8 questions on the -- when you talk about the 

9 line by line, that's on Page 5 of this file. 

10 Is that correct, Table 1-1?

11 MS. BEHLING: Yes. And I'll give 

12 you a brief overview.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

14 MS. BEHLING: Table 1-1 is a 

15 comparison of the recorded and missed 

16 externals, and we'll go into this. One of our 

17 methods, Method B, also assessed a potential 

18 skin contamination dose for this case. We also 

19 looked at -- everybody agreed that there was 

20 an unmonitored period of employment.

21 And each of the two SC&A methods 

22 and NIOSH calculated a monitored dose based on 
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1 coworker model. They also calculated an 

2 occupational medical dose and internal dose. 

3 And this particular case, there 

4 were several skin cancers. I'll be a little 

5 bit vague on some of the details, just so that 

6 I don't cross over any lines here.

7 But in this particular case, there 

8 were several skin cancers. And we also 

9 calculated a red bone marrow dose for a bone 

10 cancer.

11 I will also just point out to you, 

12 on Table 2-2, which is on Page 8 of our 

13 report, is a comparison of the different 

14 assumptions and parameters that were used by 

15 the different methods.

16 Overall, the dose reconstruction 

17 method, SC&A's Method A used the best estimate 

18 approach. Method B is what they considered a 

19 reasonable claimant-favorable approach. And 

20 NIOSH, at least in the up-front information, 

21 indicated that their approach was more over22 estimating.
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1 And all of the other parameters 

2 that were used for the different methodologies 

3 are identified in this particular table.

4 Now, we'll go to the back end here 

5 and I'll take you to the summary. And if we 

6 have any questions, and you want to go into 

7 details of any of the doses, we can do that 

8 thereafter, as recommended by Mark.

9 And if we go back to Page 14 on 

10 the summary conclusions, this table gives you 

11 total external skin doses for Methods A and B 

12 from SC&A, and NIOSH's doses, the internal 

13 skin doses, and also the internal and external 

14 doses for the red bone marrow.

15 And let me just point the primary 

16 differences in this table, and what we have 

17 concluded caused or was the result of those 

18 differences.

19 First of all, you can see that 

20 SC&A's Method B, under the external skin dose, 

21 is significantly higher than NIOSH's doses, 

22 and SC&A's Method A.
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1 That was primarily due to the fact 

2 that Method B selected for its unmonitored 

3 period of exposure -- which was about -- I 

4 think an eight, no, nine or ten year period --

5 when they went into the coworker model, which 

6 is OTIB-40, they selected the 95th percentile 

7 value, as opposed to Method A and NIOSH 

8 selecting the 50th percentile value for the 

9 coworker model.

10 As you can see under the internal 

11 skin doses, they were not calculated under 

12 Method B. They were assumed that they were 

13 going to be fairly insignificant. Method A 

14 and NIOSH's values are very close.

15 And then if we go to the red bone 

16 marrow doses, as you can see, again the Method 

17 B for SC&A has a significantly higher external 

18 dose. Again, that's the result of selecting 

19 the 95th percentile value from the coworker 

20 model.

21 And the internal dose for the red 

22 bone marrow, you can see that NIOSH's internal 
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1 dose was significantly higher than both 

2 methods for SC&A.

3 That really resulted in the way 

4 everyone interpreted the bioassay data. There 

5 were quite a few bioassay samples. And what 

6 NIOSH did in their assessment, they assumed a 

7 chronic intake throughout the entire 

8 employment period.

9 And then, in evaluating the 

10 records, they realized there were several 

11 bioassays using urinalysis taken in a row in 

12 the 1977 time frame.

13 And those bioassays, even though 

14 they were just over the limits of detection, 

15 they considered that a potential incident. 

16 And so they went and calculated, on top of 

17 their chronic dose, an acute dose, and went 

18 back to a date that was halfway between the 

19 previous bioassay and the date of these 

20 multiple bioassays.

21 So that's how their internal dose 

22 resulted in a significantly higher amount than 
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1 what SC&A's approaches were. SC&A's approach 

2 assumed a chronic bioassay. And most of the 

3 bioassays were below or right at the levels of 

4 detection.

5 So I guess in summary, as you can 

6 see on my Page 14 and 15, for the external 

7 doses, the selection of either a 50th or a 

8 95th percentile value played a big role in the 

9 differences in dose.

10 Also, when it came to selecting 

11 the organ DCF values, throughout the external 

12 dose process and reconstruction, NIOSH chose 

13 to assume that the DCF was one.

14 Where in both the SC&A 

15 methodologies, we went into the external 

16 implementation guide and selected the actual 

17 organ DCF value, which was significantly below 

18 one.

19 In addition, it was somewhat 

20 interesting. On the occupational medical 

21 dose, everyone used the same procedure, and 

22 selected, obviously, the site occupational 
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1 dose Technical Basis Document.

2 But each method did a few things 

3 different. Method A assumed that there was an 

4 annual X-ray exam procedure, which is 

5 specified in that procedure.

6 Both Method B and the NIOSH 

7 methodology assumed, they went into the 

8 records and simply counted the number of X-ray 

9 exams that were in the DOE files. And so they 

10 calculated their occupational medical dose not 

11 on an annual, but on what was in the records. 

12 There was also some differences 

13 regarding, for some of the skin cancers, what 

14 surrogate organ was selected for pulling off 

15 the data from the table in the Technical Basis 

16 Document.

17 Now if we go into the internal 

18 doses, again, as I just specified, there was a 

19 difference in methodology because of both 

20 NIOSH using both a chronic -- I'm sorry, a 

21 chronic intake throughout the employment 

22 period. And they also assumed an acute on top 
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1 of that.

2 One of the other things that we 

3 did a little bit differently than SC&A did in 

4 Method A, where we looked at the bioassay 

5 data, rather than assuming a maybe more 

6 claimant-favorable absorption type F.

7 When we plotted that data and 

8 fitted the data that we used, we realized if 

9 we introduced a chest count that was done 

10 later in the process, we would have likely 

11 overestimated the dose by using an absorption 

12 type F.

13 So we fell back to an absorption 

14 type M, which seemed to fit the data more 

15 appropriately, taking into account that chest 

16 count.

17 And so that's the summary in a 

18 nutshell. And if you have any questions, I'll 

19 attempt to answer them. And I'm going to 

20 maybe call on Doug because he was the Method A 

21 SC&A dose reconstructor.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'll start off 
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1 at least one question. And you alluded to 

2 this, I think. But the skin doses, part of 

3 the differences from Method A, I understand 

4 the difference with Method B versus NIOSH.

5 But with Method A versus NIOSH's 

6 numbers, you said one of them might have been 

7 the surrogate organ selected. But NIOSH's 

8 numbers are supposed to be -- maybe they're 

9 not overestimating in this. Well, yes, you 

10 said they were, using an overestimating DCF 

11 for that, right?

12 MS. BEHLING: Right. I, quite 

13 honestly, found it seemed like a bit of a 

14 hybrid to me, which often happens during the 

15 process.

16 I think they started out with the 

17 overestimating approach by using the claimant18 favorable DCF value of one. As the process 

19 went on, things such as counting the number of 

20 X-ray exams, as opposed to just assuming an 

21 annual -- typically, for an efficiency 

22 measure, they would just assume an annual.
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1 They didn't do that in this 

2 particular case. Same with the internal dose.

3 I think there were things that they did that 

4 were claimant-favorable.

5 I will also point out, and again 

6 NIOSH, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, 

7 but generally when there are many or any kind 

8 of overestimating techniques used in dose 

9 reconstruction, if that PoC were to go over 50 

10 percent, they would take a second look at this 

11 case.

12 And I think if this PoC would have 

13 been over 50 percent, they most likely would 

14 have gone back and used actual DCF values. 

15 They may have also gone back and reassessed 

16 their fitting process for their internal dose.

17 And I hope, if you've had time to 

18 read the document -- I tried to be as clear as 

19 I could throughout the process to say in each 

20 step why there were differences -- and 

21 hopefully the report does explain that.

22 But if there are comments or 
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1 questions down the road, feel free to contact 

2 either Doug or myself or John Mauro.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Others have 

4 questions?

5 MS. BEHLING: I will also say 

6 there is a second blind dose reconstruction, 

7 that we will be submitting a second report for 

8 that. And we should have that prepared for 

9 the next meeting.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: As we're 

11 looking at this case, and the other one, part 

12 of our challenge is to decide to what extent 

13 we want to use blind cases going forward, and 

14 whether we want to increase the number, 

15 whether we wanted to use methodology similar 

16 to what SC&A used here.

17 I kind of like the Method A/B 

18 idea. I can see John Mauro in Method B, of 

19 course. But I think that, yes, that's a good 

20 gut check kind of thing.

21 But the afternoon discussion is 

22 going to revolve around the dose 
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1 reconstruction methodology. So I think we 

2 want to think about whether these blind 

3 reviews are useful and how we can use them 

4 going forward.

5 MS. BEHLING: The other thing I 

6 would point out, which is somewhat of a unique 

7 concept, although John Mauro has mentioned it 

8 before, I know, in Work Groups that he's in.

9 And so in Section II, 0.2.8, John 

10 has written a fairly extensive assessment of 

11 potential skin contamination. And his feeling 

12 was that since these skin contaminations were 

13 on the face, and neck, and that type of area, 

14 and considering the person's job function, 

15 that there could have been, and also at this 

16 particular site, there is a section in the 

17 Technical Basis Document which discusses the 

18 potential for skin contamination.

19 He felt that it would be 

20 interesting to see if he could actually make 

21 some broad assumptions and calculate some 

22 doses, which he did.
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1 And I included that in our up 

2 front table. But it might be interesting 

3 reading for some, our original report, which 

4 was sent with this comparison, as to how he 

5 went about calculating those doses.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, he's 

7 raised this issue before. And it's one of 

8 those that's interesting. In your Table 1.1, 

9 it demonstrates that this is an area that's 

10 not accounted for otherwise. And that's how 

11 John raised this issue, I think.

12 MS. BEHLING: Yes.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It's how can we 

14 account for --

15 MR. KATZ: While people are 

16 thinking, Kathy, can I just get clarification 

17 from you? What is this second report that's 

18 going to be coming for the next DR 

19 Subcommittee meeting? When is that? Because 

20 -- go ahead.

21 MS. BEHLING: I'm sorry. We were 

22 tasked with doing two blind reviews.
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1 MR. KATZ: Right.

2 MS. BEHLING: This is a comparison 

3 of the first. And I was going to prepare a 

4 comparison of the second one also.

5 MR. KATZ: Okay. Because didn't 

6 you present both of these previously?

7 MR. FARVER: We presented the 

8 blind --

9 MR. KATZ: Right, the blind 

10 reviews.

11 MR. FARVER: But this is a 

12 comparison of our blind reviews versus the 

13 actual NIOSH dose reconstruction.

14 MS. BEHLING: Correct. What we 

15 presented --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think we 

17 asked him to go back and give more detail on 

18 this, on both of these.

19 MR. FARVER: See when we did the 

20 dose reconstruction, we did not have access to 

21 it. They just gave us the original files. 

22 And we went through and did a dose 
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1 reconstruction. And that's what we presented 

2 to you, our dose reconstruction.

3 MR. KATZ: Oh, so you didn't 

4 compare your results to --

5 MR. FARVER: No. That was not 

6 part of it.

7 MR. KATZ: Okay, I thought that 

8 was part of the discussion.

9 MR. FARVER: -- we were just doing 

10 a blind review.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes. That was tasked 

12 at the July 2011 meeting.

13 MR. KATZ: Okay, thank you.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

15 MR. FARVER: And then this is a 

16 comparison of what NIOSH came up with, with 

17 what we came up with.

18 MR. KATZ: Got it, thank you.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So my interest 

20 mainly, from this information, is to think 

21 about how it can affect going forward. What 

22 can we glean out of this? What's the 
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1 usefulness in terms of our overall dose 

2 reconstruction effort here?

3 I think the other DR reviews 

4 strictly focus on, we'll get down to this this 

5 afternoon, but it tends to pull out the 

6 quality questions, the quality issues, the 

7 quality findings. These blind reviews could 

8 look at different aspects. Wanda wants to say 

9 something. I can see it.

10 MEMBER MUNN: No, it's just --

11 determining what value, if any, this kind of 

12 focused attention will have for us, is not an 

13 easy task. And it's one that probably 

14 requires more deep thought than deep 

15 discussion, really.

16 And I personally haven't had an 

17 opportunity to absorb the material here. I'm 

18 looking forward to hearing Kathy's helpful 

19 blow-by-blow of things that will heighten my 

20 personal attention when I'm spending more time 

21 thinking about these. I guess what I was 

22 trying to say is it's hard to discuss it right 
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1 now.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: This 

3 particular one came out on Tuesday. By 

4 Wednesday night, I was out of town for the 

5 holiday, and came back on Sunday evening. So 

6 I had yesterday. So I really also didn't get 

7 a chance, particularly on this one, to absorb 

8 it.

9 MEMBER MUNN: And I was traveling 

10 all day yesterday.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: But that's the 

12 particular of this particular week.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I 

14 understand.

15 MEMBER MUNN: And I'm not begging 

16 off, I'm just saying that deep discussion is -

17 -

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It is something 

19 we need to figure out. That's what I'm 

20 saying. I'm not saying we can do it in an 

21 hour.

22 MS. BEHLING: And I apologize for 
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1 not getting this into your hands earlier. But 

2 I will hopefully get this next review or 

3 comparison into your hands in plenty of time 

4 before the next meeting.

5 So perhaps you'll be able to 

6 digest that, and will be able to have a more 

7 meaningful discussion of maybe even both of 

8 these, at that point in time.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Normally a 

10 week's time is fine, if it's a regular week. 

11 You just happened to send it in a very 

12 particular holiday week. That made it 

13 difficult for us. Otherwise, if you sent it a 

14 week, or of course two, in advance, that's 

15 fine.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's pretty 

17 good for us too, a week in advance.

18 And I think the other thing that 

19 I'm realizing is that, because I know it's 

20 come up on the Board meetings, and the overall 

21 Board has asked about why have we just done 

22 two blind reviews.
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1 And so I think there's certainly 

2 some interest in having the additional blind 

3 reviews. But I want to see, before we just 

4 assign a bunch of them, let's think more 

5 deeply about what are we going to get out of 

6 them.

7 And to that end, I'll also say 

8 that I think we probably need to -- and I'm

9 sure Ted will agree with this -- probably need 

10 to schedule our next DR Subcommittee meeting a 

11 little sooner. Because we're falling behind 

12 on the overall case work too. So I think we 

13 might be able to more deeply discuss this, but 

14 have a meeting early January or something like 

15 that, right after our next Board meeting. 

16 Because it's not a matter of waiting for SC&A 

17 or NIOSH to get more work done. I think we've 

18 got enough work on our plate right now that we 

19 need to just probably schedule a meeting 

20 sooner than that.

21 MEMBER CLAWSON: I'd like to make 

22 one comment about this. From the layman's 
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1 term, I know that you guys understand the 

2 fundamentals of the dose reconstruction a heck 

3 of a lot better than what I do.

4 But I really found this useful, 

5 the comparison of going through and actually 

6 seeing what the process was and why the 

7 differences were in there.

8 And I really found it quite 

9 interesting, just to help me understand it 

10 better. And I think there are a few other 

11 people on the Board that are similar to my 

12 case.

13 I thought this was quite good. I 

14 like the breakdown of where we were at, and 

15 why they did what they did. The conclusion 

16 was quite good.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I think 

18 part of our hope is that we could identify 

19 instances where the guidance isn't clear 

20 enough, certainly comparing Method A to NIOSH.

21 Method B is a little different 

22 thing. But comparing Method A to NIOSH, I 
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1 think hopefully the findings we would expect 

2 out of that would be: well, why did we select 

3 this, and NIOSH select it this way? Well, the 

4 guidance wasn't clear. So findings like that 

5 might come out of the process.

6 On the other hand, now NIOSH has 

7 instituted their internal, so it might be just 

8 as valuable for the Board to oversee their 

9 internal blind process, rather than do a whole 

10 set of redundant blind processes. I don't 

11 know. Maybe a little redundancy might be 

12 useful, but those are the things I'm thinking 

13 about, as I'm sitting here.

14 MEMBER MUNN: The bottom line 

15 question is: what does all this focus buy us, 

16 really? Are we getting something out of it 

17 that tells us that something does need to be 

18 changed, or is inadequate? Has been? That's 

19 the basic question.

20 MEMBER CLAWSON: Well, and I guess 

21 I've got to look at it from the claimant's 

22 standpoint, because I've always looked at 
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1 these dose reconstructions, and how come we 

2 had so much difference in them, and everything 

3 else. And to tell you the truth, in reading 

4 through this, it helped me better understand 

5 what the process was and how they went through 

6 it.

7 I really, and this is just me, 

8 though, I really found it very useful. And I 

9 think it'll bring a lot of closure to a lot of 

10 other people, seeing that we are watching. 

11 And we're doing an independent review of this.

12 And we have double-checked what's being done. 

13 MS. BEHLING: I found it 

14 interesting also that people can be using the 

15 same documentation, but maybe interpret the 

16 DOE files a little bit different, and maybe 

17 make a few judgment calls differently.

18 And so I thought -- even as well 

19 as I think I understand the process, I thought 

20 that it was interesting to see how three 

21 individuals would assess the guidance and 

22 assess the data in different ways, even using 
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1 the same documentation, the same guidance 

2 documentation, the same DOE files.

3 MR. STIVER: This is John Stiver. 

4 I've got to agree with you on that, Kathy. I 

5 think this is probably the most valuable 

6 lesson we've seen here. Just thinking of the 

7 different decision points that allow some 

8 professional judgment on which way to go, you 

9 can see that the end results of that can be at 

10 least factors of two or more, for the final 

11 dose number, using the exact same numbers.

12 And I think that's probably the 

13 most important thing to get out of it. I'd 

14 also tend to agree with Mark, that there may 

15 be a bit of redundancy here now that NIOSH is 

16 actually doing their own internal reviews.

17 And to be honest, I think that 

18 would be the logical place for that to occur.

19 But you know, we have been attached with this. 

20 And we have an ongoing commitment to do it.

21 And this afternoon we may decide 

22 that there are other aspects of these that 
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1 might be beneficial, other than just a check 

2 on the implementation of the guidance and the 

3 decision process.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me ask 

5 this. I don't see any findings related to 

6 this blind case.

7 MR. STIVER: This is really a 

8 comparison.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I know. 

10 But what I mean, can you boil it down to: did 

11 you find where the guidance, or where there 

12 was too much leeway, and left to professional 

13 judgment in a certain -- I don't think it's 

14 going to come out of this one case. But I'm 

15 just asking.

16 MR. STIVER: Yes. And I don't 

17 think it was either, it was more of a 

18 comparison to expose here, and the first time 

19 we've actually seen the side-by-side 

20 comparison of both.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: But even the 

22 decision of 50 percent versus 95 percentile 
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1 coworker, that's a model. And there should be 

2 an instruction and, more importantly, a 

3 decision, collectively, about what should be 

4 the proper number to use. That has to be 

5 resolved. Maybe I don't understand coworker 

6 models, though.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: One aspect, when 

8 we were talking at the last meeting is: where, 

9 in the dose reconstruction audit, is the 

10 science reflected anywhere, if at all? 

11 Because the basic reviews are just that. 

12 They're looking at the implementation and the 

13 quality side.

14 But one thing that has arisen, 

15 kind of through an interaction of the Site 

16 Profile and dose reconstruction processes, the 

17 notion of when to pick up the full 

18 distribution, or a higher percentage for a 

19 given coworker model. And what categories of 

20 workers would that go into. So it kind of 

21 illustrates the subtle interplay between the 

22 two different components there, which is very 
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1 valuable.

2 MS. BEHLING: In fact, it's 

3 interesting, for this coworker model, if I can 

4 just take a minute and read a portion of, I 

5 think, why the decisions that were made on the 

6 50th percentile and 95th percentile.

7 Actually, from OTIB-40, it says, 

8 "In general, the 50th percentile dose may be 

9 used as a best estimate of a worker's dose 

10 when professional judgment indicates the 

11 worker was likely exposed to intermediate low 

12 levels of external radiation.

13 The 50th percentile dose should 

14 not be used for workers who are routinely 

15 exposed. The routinely exposed workers, i.e., 

16 workers who are expected to have to be 

17 monitored, the 95th percentile dose should be 

18 applied."

19 And actually, in our Method B, 

20 that quote was included to state this is why 

21 we felt, from under Method B, that the 95th 

22 percentile would be the applicable dose to be 
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1 included for the coworker model.

2 So just based on that statement, 

3 you can understand whether, as I said, with 

4 SC&A's Method A, and Doug, you can speak to 

5 this, you were looking at this as a best 

6 estimate approach. And I assume that's why 

7 you selected the 50th percentile dose. Not to 

8 put you on the spot, but just in reading that 

9 sentence --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And Kathy, that 

11 quote you read, where is it within you report?

12 Is that --

13 MS. BEHLING: That is not in my 

14 report.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, okay.

16 MS. BEHLING: It's in the actual 

17 review that was also sent along with this 

18 paragraph. It's on Page 50 of our review, or 

19 actually our dose reconstruction of this case.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This whole 

21 review, yes. Page 50 or 15?

22 MS. BEHLING: Page 50.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: There are a couple 

2 of things I think that, Scott might want to 

3 swat me here, but there are a couple things 

4 that may factor into the decision of between 

5 50 and 95 percent.

6 There's a person's job title, and 

7 I looked at this. This person's job title is 

8 reported here. And that indicates to me that 

9 this is probably someone -- it is a foreman, 

10 and it's not a production foreman.

11 So to me this indicates someone 

12 who maybe is not as heavily exposed as the 

13 monitored population in general. Because the 

14 second part of the question is: how full, how 

15 complete, a monitoring record do we have from 

16 this site during this year, or the years this 

17 person worked there?

18 If they have a very robust 

19 monitoring program, and this person was not 

20 included, then that improves the chances that 

21 he was not one of the most eligible people, 

22 which would move him to the 50th percentile as 
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1 the proper selection, rather than 95th 

2 percentile.

3 So there are a couple of things 

4 that factor into it, neither of which I know 

5 the facts of, other than job title. And the 

6 job title, to me, the 50 percentile sounds 

7 like a reasonable, just going on job title, it 

8 sounds like a reasonable choice to me.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But then you 

10 might get back to what John was saying. The 

11 interpretation of that guidance, just 

12 listening to that phrase that Kathy read, I 

13 can see how three people could interpret it in 

14 three different ways. You know, monitored and 

15 likely exposed to, and so --

16 MS. BEHLING: Well, it's also a 

17 bit interesting. During the period that he 

18 wasn't monitored for external, he was 

19 monitored for internal.

20 MR. FARVER: And see, I'm looking 

21 at the report that apparently I wrote. And it 

22 says that he was monitored for photon/electron 
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1 dose from '67 through '69, and from '80 

2 through '89. And then from '70 through '79, 

3 there was no monitoring, external monitoring.

4 So I wrote that he was assigned a 

non-construction coworker dose at 50th 5

6 percentile. Because I felt that he was likely 

7 exposed to intermittent low levels of external 

8 radiation. So I interpreted differently.

9 MR. CALHOUN: That makes sense.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Seems 

11 reasonable, yes.

12 MR. SIEBERT: That's how it was 

13 interpreted in the original assessment from 

14 us.

15 MR. FARVER: But I don't know. I 

16 could argue and also see it the other way. 

17 How do I know that, that it was intermittent 

18 low levels? I don't know.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did his job 

20 title change from those three different 

21 periods?

22 MS. BEHLING: No.
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1 MR. FARVER: I don't think we have 

2 information on that.

3 MR. HINNEFELD: We may not know.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, may not 

5 know.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Sometimes we don't 

7 have the last job title.

8 MR. STIVER: And also there's that 

9 uncertainty about what really a production 

10 foreman is doing.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: He was not a 

12 production foreman.

13 MR. STIVER: I mean, with the 

14 particular job title.

15 MEMBER CLAWSON: You know that's 

16 what's always bothered me. Because working in 

17 the industry, usually nine times out of ten I 

18 have a foreman right alongside me that is an 

19 independent overseer of what I'm doing, for 

20 security reasons and also for other things.

21 That's why I really always shy 

22 away when they throw out somebody's job title.
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1 Because, boy, there's a lot of interesting 

2 ones that fit into it. And that's why it 

3 makes me nervous. Because usually he's got as 

4 much or sometimes more than I have in dose.

5 MR. SIEBERT: And one other thing 

6 that we take into account is looking at, in a 

7 case like this, where the individual actually 

8 was monitored for a significant portion, on 

9 either side, what coworker dose looks 

10 reasonable compared to what he was getting 

11 when he was being monitored.

12 Because it seems like if the 

13 individual's being monitored, and he's getting 

14 20 millirem per year, and then he has a ten 

15 year non-monitored period, we're not going to 

16 give him three rem per year.

17 MR. STIVER: Yes. Assuming his 

18 exposure scenario is essentially the same --

19 MR. SIEBERT: Right. But once 

20 again, putting all these things together, 

21 that's another piece of the puzzle we need to 

22 look at.
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1 MR. FARVER: Is that type of 

2 wording in the documentation, the guidance 

3 about: they should look at the surrounding 

4 doses? I think it's a good idea.

5 MR. SIEBERT: We do look at that. 

6 Matt, do you happen to know if that's in OTIB7 20? I know we updated OTIB-20 to put some of 

8 this wording in, when we discussed it ad 

9 nauseam before. Putting Matt on the spot.

10 MR. SMITH: Yes. I'd have to go 

11 pull it up quick. And I don't know that we 

12 talk about comparing the dose levels. That 

13 may be encompassed in one of the procedures, 

14 however.

15 MR. FARVER: I think it should be 

16 included somewhere, just because that's just 

17 another check on the system.

18 MR. STIVER: I may be wrong, but I 

19 think I recall seeing that in the external 

20 implementation guide.

21 MR. SMITH: It might also be in 

22 Procedure-6.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Kathy, could I 

2 ask two questions? I'm still trying to get 

3 caught up. This is David Richardson. Maybe 

4 the first one is: characterizing Method A and 

5 Method B, are they on equal footing? Is one 

6 preferred over the other?

7 MS. BEHLING: Well, what we were 

8 trying to do, and again this was somewhat of 

9 John Mauro's philosophy at the time, Method A 

10 is supposed to be equivalent to what NIOSH is 

11 doing. We are comparing apples with apples.

12 With Method B, John used to call 

13 it -- and I don't believe John Mauro is on the 

14 phone here. He thought he might be able to 

15 join later in the day. And I hope I'm going 

16 to explain this correctly.

17 But John would always talk about: 

18 let's go in and let's use a single basis 

19 document which gives us a history of the site, 

20 so I understand what this person was exposed 

21 to. But then let's do that practical health 

22 physics back-of-the-envelope type 
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1 calculations.

2 However, when John actually got 

3 into this, it went a lot further than that. 

4 He realized he couldn't just do back-of-the5 envelope type calculations with some of these 

6 things. But that was the initial philosophy. 

7 And, Doug, you can maybe expand on this a bit.

8 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. That helps. 

9 That was what I was looking for.

10 MS. BEHLING: Okay.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: On Page 9 of 

12 the draft, SC&A-TOR-DDR2012/CN016 -- the 

13 document that you sent us. It lays out for 

14 the medical doses, occupational medical doses.

15 It struck me that maybe SC&A had 

16 switched around. Because in a sense the 

17 Method B was conforming to what NIOSH is 

18 doing. And Method A looked more, to me, like 

19 a back-of-the-envelope approach. It's 

20 dividing by a factor of 1.3 to account for the 

21 uncertainty. Whereas Method B and NIOSH were 

22 entering in a dose and assuming a distribution 
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1 with some uncertainty around it. Am I right 

2 about that, or not understanding?

3 MS. BEHLING: No. You're correct.

4 And again, this was one of the areas that, if 

5 you go into the procedure, Method A went into 

6 the procedures that we are going to select an 

7 annual X-ray frequency. Because the procedure 

8 indicates that that would be appropriate to 

9 do.

10 Now with Method B, he went in and 

11 actually looked at the 12 X-ray exams that 

12 were in there, and decided that he was going 

13 to calculate a dose for only those 12.

14 In actuality, NIOSH correctly used 

15 ten of those X-ray exams, because two of them 

16 were on the hand, and they were from an 

17 injury. So really only ten of them were 

18 associated with the test injury.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I guess I'm 

20 focusing not so much on the counting of the 

21 number of X-ray exams as the handling of the 

22 uncertainty in the estimate of the X-ray dose.
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1 Taking an assumption, I guess, a 

2 historical assumption about what a dose from 

3 an X-ray exam is, and dividing it by a factor 

4 of -- or multiplying it by a factor of 1.3, to 

5 account for that uncertainty, because you 

6 actually haven't measured the X-ray dose, 

7 versus entering it in as a distribution.

8 MS. BEHLING: Multiplying by 1.3 

9 is in keeping with the procedure, I believe.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: In keeping 

11 with the --

12 MS. BEHLING: With the procedure 

13 and with the Technical Basis Document.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So NIOSH 

15 didn't do that correctly when they entered it 

16 in as a -- what, a normal distribution with a 

17 standard deviation of 30 percent?

18 MS. BEHLING: I believe you can do 

19 either one.

20 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, I'd like to 

21 point out the best estimate is to use the 

22 actual value with a normal distribution with 
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1 30 percent, as an overestimating assumption.

2 It's multiplying by 1.3, just to 

3 take the high end of the distribution in mind.

4 So when it's an overestimate non-comp claim, 

5 multiplying by 1.3, rather than doing the 

6 whole distribution, was a common practice.

7 We don't do that anymore. We do 

8 them all now as best estimate, with the actual 

9 value and the 30 percent normal distribution. 

10 Both are acceptable. One is an overestimate, 

11 only taking into account the positive 

12 uncertainty, as opposed to giving it the 

13 distribution.

14 MS. BEHLING: Thank you, Scott.

15 MR. SIEBERT: Sure.

16 MR. STIVER: So it was kind of in 

17 line with using the Monte Carlo methods and 

18 calculations.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Right, wanting 

20 to do less Monte Carlo sampling, so you enter 

21 it in as a constant, and a constant at one 

22 standard deviation above the mean of the 
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1 normal distribution. That's what you're 

2 saying?

3 MR. SIEBERT: Right. 

CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 84th 4 percentile.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So that's a 

6 different percentile, again.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, it would 

8 be.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: It's a quirky 

10 percentile. Okay. And can we go down and 

11 look at the -- still I'm just trying to 

12 understand -- the appendices list all the 

13 values that are entered in. This is the 

14 appendices of the other document, first blind 

15 DR, January 2009. If you go down to Page 20 

16 you start to get these appendices, where all 

17 the doses are entered in.

18 MS. BEHLING: The IREP run.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And now that's 

20 the IREP input data for A, B, or NIOSH?

21 MS. BEHLING: For A.

22 MR. STIVER: That would be A.
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1 MS. BEHLING: Yes. The report

2 that we initially did was a dose 

3 reconstruction using two methods, Method A and 

4 Method B. And none of that data in there 

5 reflects anything that NIOSH did.

6 NIOSH's data is only included in 

7 the comparison. And so halfway through the 

8 report, you will see the IREP input data for 

9 Method A at the end of the report. You'll see

10 -- now let me be sure I'm correct here.

11 MR. STIVER: Beginning on Page 44 

12 is the Method B.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So if we start 

14 at Method A with Table I-1, there's a series 

15 of rows in the table about dose values that 

16 are entered. And this is, again, just for my 

17 understanding.

18 The first row, Exposure 1, there 

19 was a recorded dose in 1969 for this worker. 

20 There's an assumption about the energies. And 

21 the value that's entered in is a constant 

22 distribution with a value of 0.194.
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1 So under Method A here, under your 

2 idea, you've done some correction again for 

3 the dosimetry, a correction dosimetry 

4 response, I guess, angular response or energy 

5 response. But why is that value entered in as

6 a constant there? Because it's a recorded 

7 dose, right?

8 MS. BEHLING: Yes, it is. We 

9 generally entered it as a constant as a 

10 claimant-favorable assumption. Doug, I'm 

11 going to look to you for --

12 MR. FARVER: And I'm trying to 

13 think if that's something we did, or if that 

14 was something that was in the workbook.

15 MR. SIEBERT: Well, I would guess 

16 that's because we're using the overestimating 

17 DCF of one, versus an actual DCF.

18 MR. FARVER: It probably wasn't 

19 for that one.

20 MR. SIEBERT: Not for that one?

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: That's up 

22 earlier in the page, where you get the 1.94.
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1 MR. STIVER: It can be kind of 

2 confusing, because a lot of these dates 

3 represent different types of exposures.

4 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So it's on 

5 Page 12? You've a recorded dose of 0.1.39 

6 rem. And you've got a series of factors that 

7 it's multiplied by, dosimeter CF uncertainty.

8 So you're saying because you've 

9 taken an uncertainty factor of 1.1 and 

10 multiplied it by it, that you enter it in as a 

11 constant?

12 MS. BEHLING: I'm looking.

13 MR. FARVER: I'm looking too.

14 MS. BEHLING: I think we used the 

15 actual DCF values on these, Doug, didn't we?

16 MR. FARVER: We did. We took the 

17 dosimeter value times the dosimeter correction 

18 factor times an uncertainty factor times the 

19 organ DCF. And for the skin dose DCF of one.

20 MS. BEHLING: Correct.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So is NIOSH 

22 convinced that it's claimant-favorable to 
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1 enter in values as a constant at one standard 

2 deviation, as opposed to allowing a normal 

3 distribution with tails? I have a hard time 

4 with the intuition about whether that is or is 

5 not claimant-favorable.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We've had this 

7 discussion with Jim Neton a couple of times.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: It seems like Jim 

9 was involved in that one before.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because we 

11 raised the same issue earlier on it.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: It seems like we 

13 demonstrated a long time ago that the issue 

14 exists in a variety of situations.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I don't recall 

16 seeing a final sort of --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't recall 

18 specifically.

19 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Part of this 

20 gets back to this question earlier about how 

21 the Monte Carlos are being done. And you've 

22 got 140-odd records.
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1 A lot of them are entered as 

2 constants. There's actually no uncertainty of 

3 distribution around them. None of them are 

4 normal distributions.

5 And you've got a few triangular 

6 distributions. It's always rubbed me the 

7 wrong way. They rub me the wrong way because 

8 they're not claimant-favorable either. 

9 They're truncated.

10 But I didn't see any of what I was 

11 expecting of normal distributions around 

12 values. Maybe I shouldn't expect them. It 

13 wasn't what I was --

14 MR. HINNEFELD: I don't know, 

15 David. I don't recall if that approach, in 

16 one batch or another, has been there forever, 

17 as it is acceptable to use this particular --

18 multiplied, particularly in medical doses 

19 rather than the actual dose with the 

20 distribution. And I'm not 100 percent sure why 

21 it was ever adopted. But it's been there 

22 forever. It seems like there was some work 
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1 done initially to convince ourselves it was 

2 okay to do that. But it's been so long I ago I 

3 don't recall.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You might check 

5 back with Jim on that. Because we have raised 

6 this question since early on.

7 MR. SIEBERT: And once again, we 

8 don't do that now. Now we use the actual 

9 data.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we don't do 

11 that anymore. It'd probably be the 

12 historical, for historical --

13 MR. FARVER: It looks like the 

14 workbook tool put in distribution time as 

15 constant. And I'm looking to see if there was 

16 anyplace up front to change that, to add 

17 uncertainty. In that workbook, I do not see 

18 anywhere included.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And when you 

20 say you don't do that now, Scott, that's in 

21 this instance? Or I think there's other 

22 instances --
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1 MR. SIEBERT: For medical X-rays, 

2 we use the actual value. It's an across the 

3 board, and we use actual medical X-ray records 

4 to do that.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But David's 

6 broader question, there's other instances 

7 where you may just use a value constant, 

8 right, as opposed to a whole distribution.

9 MR. SIEBERT: Generically, we're 

10 getting away from doing that. And this kind 

11 of speaks to Doug. Honestly, I'm going out on 

12 a limb guessing here. But it's a pretty 

13 educated guess.

14 The tool was written for 

15 overestimating assumptions, if we had to do a 

16 best estimate case, which would include Monte 

17 Carlo calculations and include all the 

18 distributions.

19 We would have used the best 

20 estimate tool, which would have then been a 

21 Crystal Ball calculation. That is much more 

22 user-intensive, takes much more time.
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1 So if we can use the 

2 overestimating tool, and it's a non-comp 

3 claim, we would, which would have those 

4 overestimating assumptions in them, rather 

5 than the full distribution.

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I have another 

7 question. Let's say that you've got medical 

8 doses. You just assume that the person 

9 received annual medical exposures over a 20-

10 year period.

11 So the spreadsheet's going to 

12 have, am I right in thinking about this, 20 

13 lines of doses of a certain energy. And now 

14 you're --

15 MR. SIEBERT: Right, 1960, 1961, 

16 right.

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: -- you're 

18 entering them in as a distribution under the 

19 new way of handling this. So there's a mean 

20 and an assumption of a variance for standard 

21 error around it.

22 Do you know, or how those are
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1 being handled to get the post-year 

2 distribution? Do you do a unique draw on each 

3 one? Or do you assume that there's 

4 correlation in the distributions around them?

5 MR. SIEBERT: Who wants to handle 

6 an IREP question?

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Well, that would 

8 be for Jim.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Because in a 

10 sense you could do either. You could imagine 

11 each one is a unique draw. It's 

12 computationally intensive, but it could be 

13 done.

14 On the other hand, you could also 

15 argue intuitively that there's correlation. 

16 If the X-ray machine at that facility tended 

17 to be delivering higher than average doses, 

18 compared to some survey of doses from X-ray 

19 machines in that period, then those would be 

20 correlated.

21 It just has different 

22 implications. I don't know, I'm just curious
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1 how this is being done.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: There have been 

3 pretty extensive discussions with Jim and the 

4 statisticians about that question, about 

5 correlation and its impact on your sampling 

6 strategy, when you do Monte Carlo. And I 

7 don't know that I could understand them if I 

8 listened to them.

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And then a 

10 follow-up question is: do you know, is there 

11 any way to know that it's implemented? Are 

12 these chained samplings, are they correlated 

13 samplings, are they independent draws? This, 

14 again, is part of the black box.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: There is a way to 

16 know. I don't know it. The people who 

17 designed it were the people of SENES.

18 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: And they designed 

20 it to sample in a particular fashion.

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: With Crystal 

22 Ball, I think. I remember Owen used to use 
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1 that.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Probably, probably 

3 it was designed that way. So they've designed 

4 it, and they know how they designed the 

5 sampling strategy.

6 Jim probably knows. I don't. So 

7 there is probably a way to know that. And I 

8 believe there have been discussions about this 

9 issue. So if we want to put that on the 

10 agenda, I'll have to get Jim down here to talk 

11 about it, or whoever he designates.

12 MR. KATZ: What do we want to call 

13 this?

14 MR. HINNEFELD: Correlated 

15 uncertainty.

16 MR. KATZ: Correlated uncertainty, 

17 thank you.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Right. Jim refers 

19 to it as "correlated uncertainty."

20 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And although 

21 this blind DR review was done relatively 

22 recently, the answer to some of these 
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1 questions is: this is not how ORAU's doing the 

2 reconstruction now?

3 MR. SIEBERT: This claim, on 

4 ORAU's side, was done in 2006. So yes, there 

5 would be differences on how it would be 

6 assessed now. I don't know if I would be 

7 sharp enough to know exactly how we assess 

8 things. But any of those changes would have 

9 been caught in the PER process, from the TBD 

10 and things like that.

11 MR. FARVER: And I remember we 

12 have discussed this, about the medical 

13 exposures and the 30 percent and the 1.3, and 

14 so I believe that has been changed.

15 So I don't think you even used to 

16 do Monte Carlo calculations for skin doses. 

17 Because you just would assume a DCF of one.

18 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

19 MR. FARVER: Right. So you 

20 wouldn't do a Monte Carlo calculation.

21 MR. SIEBERT: Right. As we get 

22 further down the road, and honestly Monte 
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1 Carlo techniques become more robust in our 

2 tools, we can use them with much more 

3 simplification.

4 In Crystal Ball, as I said, it was 

5 very user-intensive to run that tool through 

6 Crystal Ball. So we had a very specific 

7 number of dose reconstructors who knew how to 

8 do that.

9 And if it had to go to best 

10 estimate, we had those people do those types 

11 of cases, and run them that way. So 

12 realistically, just from an efficiency point 

13 of view, if we didn't have to go down that 

14 road, we wouldn't.

15 We would overestimate, if we could 

16 get away with it, from an efficiency point of 

17 view. Because it was just more efficient for 

18 the client and for the claimant. Now that our 

19 tools are becoming more robust and it's much 

20 more straightforward running it, we are using 

21 those methods more frequently.

22 Not in all cases; not everything's 
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1 going to be run as a Monte Carlo best 

2 estimate. But we are implementing those 

3 things more consistently, because it is just 

4 easier to do so than it had been in the past, 

5 and more consistent to do so.

6 MR. KATZ: Does the Subcommittee 

7 want to meet with him and talk about the 

8 correlated uncertainty in DRs?

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I don't know if 

10 he needs to come, at least be available, just 

11 to answer that question.

12 MR. KATZ: Or be on the phone, 

13 whatever.

14 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes, on the 

15 phone. Yes.

16 MR. KATZ: But you would like to 

17 discuss that at the next meeting, is the 

18 question?

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, so I want to 

20 make sure I've got this, because I think I 

21 understood it. You're asking, for instance, 

22 if you have 30 years of medical exposures, how 
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1 does IREP do its sampling when it propagates?

2 Are you going to do these 30 years 

3 of medical times some other distribution for 

4 each of those years? How does it draw a 

5 sample as it works through those 30 years, 

6 right?

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: This is a much 

8 broader question. Long experience tells all 

9 that the medical X-rays play a substantial 

10 role, eventually, in the PoC.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Actually, long 

12 experience would indicate to me that, in 

13 general, they don't.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: That's what I 

15 would guess as well, and yet we go through the 

16 details with great care. Yes, and a lot of 

17 things we do with great care. And then you 

18 wonder: does it really matter in the end 

19 decision?

20 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes. David's 

21 question isn't specific to medical.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: But, yes, we have 

2 spent a lot on --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I was going to 

4 say, because it comes up in other instances. 

5 That's why I was asking the broader --

6 MR. HINNEFELD: But to your 

7 comment, you were exactly correct. We have 

8 spend a lot of effort on doses that generally 

9 don't get very big.

10 MR. SIEBERT: For the most part, 

11 for most work. For some very specific cases, 

12 it can make a big difference, in skin cancers 

13 with PFGs that are in the beam. That can be a 

14 significant dose.

15 So we're always trying to look at 

16 the whole picture, not just the piece that 

17 we're looking at, just like the Subcommittee 

18 does, looking at the wider piece.

19 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: It raises -- I 

20 assume that, in some cases, after things are 

21 "finished," quotes, or near the end somebody 

22 goes back and said, okay, let's drop this 
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1 category, this external, this internal, this 

2 medical, and see what is really driving this.

3 Because that would help. Or it 

4 may suggest, okay, if this is what's driving 

5 it primarily, let's take a look back and see. 

6 Maybe we ought to look at that more carefully. 

7 Or: were we in agreement? Were ORAU and DCAS 

8 in agreement there?

9 Because it may not matter very 

10 much if you're in disagreement in other areas 

11 that didn't count much anyway. It would be an 

12 interesting look back. If it isn't done now, 

13 you may do it informally, or you may do it 

14 formally.

15 MR. KATZ: I think that's 

16 reasonable guidance for the Board's scrutiny, 

17 as well as the program's, absolutely. Focus 

18 where the money is.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, on that 

20 note --

21 (Laughter.)

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We're at a good 
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1 point to take our lunch break. And we can 

2 come back to this to start off after lunch, if 

3 we need to wrap up anything on reviews. But 

4 let's break for lunch and come back at 1:30.

5 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

6 matter went off the record at 12:23 p.m. and 

7 resumed at 1:36 p.m.)

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19
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1 A-F-T-E-R-N-O-O-N S-E-S-S-I-O-N

2 MR. KATZ: Good afternoon. This is 

3 the Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker 

4 Health, Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction 

5 Review. We're just getting started again 

6 after a lunch break.

7 Let me check on the line and see 

8 if we have Dr. Poston. Dr. Poston, are you on 

9 the line? 

10 Okay. Nonetheless.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, where we 

12 left off was on the item on the blind reviews, 

13 SC&A's blind reviews. And I don't know that 

14 we have anything more to discuss there. I 

15 mean, I think they're going to deliver one 

16 more similar sort of product.

17 MR. FARVER: Next one will be a 

18 little different because it's a single cancer.

19 Now this was multiple skin cancers.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, okay, yes, 

21 yes.

22 MR. FARVER: So the next one's a 
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1 little different.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright.

3 MR. FARVER: I don't know what it 

4 will show, but it'll just be a little bit 

5 different.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right. 

7 And I don't know that we have anything more to 

8 discuss on that case, but I think it does roll 

9 into --

10 MR. KATZ: How soon will we have 

11 it? Commence testing?

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

13 MR. FARVER: Oh, gosh. We'll have 

14 to ask Kathy.

15 MR. KATZ: Kathy, you on the line 

16 already?

17 MS. BEHLING: Yes, I am. I'm 

18 sorry, I didn't hear the question.

19 MR. KATZ: I'm sorry. How soon do 

20 you think you could have the second case to us 

21 for comparison?

22 MS. BEHLING: You could get it in 
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1 two weeks.

2 MR. KATZ: Oh, great, okay. Okay, 

3 so --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So it'll be 

5 ready for our next meeting.

6 MR. KATZ: Plenty of time, yes.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright.

8 MR. KATZ: Thanks.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And then let's 

10 do this next item, because I think that also 

11 plays into the overall dose reconstruction 

12 procedures for review, so it leads into it 

13 nicely, which is the resolution of the Rocky 

14 Flats cases. We were going to do a look-back, 

15 as we were calling it, at the Rocky Flats 

16 cases and Doug sent us out a document, and I 

17 guess John or Doug will took the lead on that.

18 MR. KATZ: We have two documents.

19 MR. FARVER: There's two 

20 documents.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, there's 

22 two, that's right, yes.
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1 MR. FARVER: And they're 

2 completely different purposes and content. I 

3 mean, it's --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: First, tell us 

5 what the documents are.

6 MR. FARVER: The first document is 

7 what's called the look-back review, and it 

8 goes back and it looks at the Site Profile 

9 issues that have been updated and changed. It 

10 talks about PER and it talks about some SEC 

11 issues, and all the things that have been 

12 changed since the last time we reviewed the 

13 Site Profile. And then the second document is 

14 specific to the Rocky Flats findings from the 

15 10th to 13th sets.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I know I've 

17 seen the first one, but could you tell me when 

18 you sent that first one out, just so I can 

19 pull it up?

20 MR. STIVER: I think it was, gosh, 

21 second week in October? I'd have to check, it 

22 might have been like October 1.
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1 MR. KATZ: I have a good 

2 explanation for this, because I sort of 

3 interceded with this which is why you got a 

4 second document. The intent, when we were 

5 discussing this look-back, was to see how well 

6 the case reviews reflect or may catch issues 

7 that are relevant for SEC matters, PER 

8 matters, in other words, how well they're 

9 catching procedural problems, potential 

10 procedural problems with dose reconstructions.

11 I mean, that was sort of the 

12 question Dr. Melius was raising, whether 

13 there's a gap between these processes and what 

14 we wanted to know from these cases is: if a 

15 case could potentially have indicated a 

16 problem that later resulted in addition of an 

17 SEC or issuance of a PER improving the 

18 procedures, did it do that?

19 If it could have, did it do that? 

20 Because we're trying to see how well are these 

21 cases capturing those issues where they might.

22 So those were sort of my general instructions 
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1 after they issued their first report, back to 

2 them for what we needed that was really not 

3 covered in the first report was --

4 MR. FARVER: I don't think what 

5 you just mentioned there is going to get 

6 covered in a DR review. In other words, it's 

7 not going to be an issue that's going to 

8 generate an SEC. It's not going to be an 

9 issue that's going to, I don't know, be a big 

10 procedural change.

11 Because those type of issues would 

12 get identified either in, you know, the 

13 Procedures Subcommittee or a Work Group or 

14 through Site Profile reviews where we identify 

15 the scientific issues.

16 I understand what you're saying --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, that's 

18 part of the discussion of the scope. That's 

19 why I said it leads into the next discussion.

20 MR. FARVER: It probably is not 

21 going to get identified in the DR review, 

22 which I think is kind of what was shown here 
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1 in the second report, and we can talk about 

2 that.

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, that may be the 

4 result of analyzing this, but the issue that 

5 Dr. Melius was concerned about was, well, if 

6 we're doing case reviews, shouldn't they be 

7 identifying such issues where they -- when 

8 they reside in the case, in effect? So if 

9 they should have revealed a problem with the 

10 Dose Reconstruction method and didn't, that 

11 would be an issue.

12 MR. STIVER: Well, we have to keep 

13 in mind that the basics and the blind DRs as 

14 they're done today, are basically doing three 

15 things: whether the data that was captured 

16 from DOE and from the CATI are in fact used in

17 the proper way; whether the procedures were 

18 followed, and the directions; and at certain 

19 junctures where there's enough leeway in the 

20 procedures that would require professional 

21 judgment, an evaluation of how that was done.

22 But what we're looking at, the
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1 case reviews were never intended to look at 

2 the big science issues or to go back and try 

3 to capture if the procedure -- they follow 

4 procedure, but to rule out the procedure --

5 and that was going to be done and I think 

6 should be done in the venue of the Work Group 

7 for that particular site, because otherwise 

8 you'd have a situation where you're trying to 

9 replicate again and again. Every time you do a 

10 case, you have to go look at these science 

11 issues again.

12 And so I think the only time I can

13 recall when a particular finding resulted in a 

14 procedural change was, I believe, in the 

15 overestimating approach used in the very 

16 beginning. One case was used to compensate 

17 another case when in fact it shouldn't have 

18 been. And I believe that was what gave rise to 

19 TBD-6000. But there's never, in my mind at 

20 least, I've never seen where a DR finding 

21 resulted in -- or an SEC arose from a final --

22 MR. KATZ: Well, I think a lot of 
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1 DR case reviews have raised issues that went 

2 beyond the case itself and I think --

3 MR. STIVER: Well, usually in the 

4 sense of: is the coworker model being applied 

5 in the correct way? So that's what I was 

6 talking about earlier, kind of the subtle 

7 interchange between --

8 MR. FARVER: A lot of them have 

9 resulted in procedural changes, just update 

10 the wording, additional wording, things like 

11 that.

12 MR. STIVER: Yes, you're probably 

13 going to find more procedural updates. Some 

14 way to feed back into the PER process and that 

15 situation.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think it's 

17 strong -- too strong -- to say never intended.

18 Because I think Ted's right. In the early, in 

19 the very early -- before your time, John and 

20 Doug, that's where we identified a lot of the 

21 big issues.

22 But we didn't have all of these 
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1 other Work Groups going out, so it's evolved 

2 into -- the bigger issues we push off into the 

3 Work Groups, and now the Work Groups are 

4 established, so they're kind of, you're right, 

5 they're set.

6 MR. STIVER: I guess the way I see 

7 it, and correct me if I'm wrong, especially 

8 Mark and Ted, that where we seem to have a 

9 problem is at the back end of the DR review, 

10 and then integrating that with the science 

11 changes per Site Profile discussions and also 

12 in parallel with that, the SEC determinations 

13 and PERs.

14 How does that all then feed back 

15 into the final product? So when you go to the 

16 Secretary, you know, actually present, we did 

17 400 dose reconstruction reviews and they all 

18 look great. Yet, at the same time, we've got 

19 all these SECs and Site Profile changes. So I 

20 wondered --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, that's 

22 exactly what Jim was considering.
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1 MR. STIVER: Yes, so how do you 

2 then integrate all that back into the process?

3 And that's where we need to kind of, you know, 

4 put our heads together and think of a way to 

5 sort of do that. But I think John Mauro's 

6 first look-back report, what he tried to do in 

7 that was, you know, kind of really capture the 

8 changes that have occurred.

9 Basically, the DRs, they're a 

10 snapshot in time. So what he did, he looked 

11 at -- because, you know, we selected Rocky 

12 Flats because the TBDs has been completely 

13 revised, the tools had all been updated.

14 And so here we have a case where 

15 you ought to be able to look at that, see 

16 what, at the time that we did the Dose 

17 Reconstructions, what the issues were, and 

18 then, you know, what are the revisions that 

19 have then taken place, and how many of those 

20 are still relevant for the reconstructions?

21 And that's kind of what we 

22 gathered was the -- our charge going forward, 
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1 although, reading through the transcript, 

2 there was a lot of discussion about this idea 

3 of integration. So I think we tried to cover 

4 both bases here as best we could. I don't 

5 know, Doug, would you like to walk them 

6 through the --

7 MR. FARVER: Which one?

8 MR. KATZ: Just before we leave 

9 this, just to clarify, it's not, I mean, the 

10 issue isn't so much are the cases integrators.

11 The question is: are the cases sort of 

12 canaries, or whatever, in the mine? Are they 

13 a useful tool, for indicating if there is a 

14 fundamental problem with the dose 

15 reconstruction procedures?

16 And I'm not sure, I can't think of 

17 all the matters that have been addressed on 

18 the SEC plane with respect to Rocky Flats, and 

19 certainly all the other sites where we've had 

20 SECs. But I wouldn't assume a priori that a 

21 dose reconstruction case review couldn't 

22 identify an issue that was in common with what 
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1 ended up being an SEC matter.

2 MR. FARVER: No. It could happen. 

3 MR. KATZ: Yes.

4 MR. FARVER: It may have, I don't 

5 know.

6 MR. KATZ: Yes.

7 MR. FARVER: I think you would 

8 have to look at all the SECs and what prompted 

9 them, and the time frame, but --

10 MR. KATZ: But just to clarify, I 

11 think the intent is that, to the extent that a 

12 Dose Reconstruction case might do that, 

13 perform that function, is it doing that? So 

14 that's it. Not that it's a be-all and end-all 

15 and that you don't need -- obviously the Site 

16 Profile reviews dig deeply into the site 

17 issues and so on, but to the extent that a 

18 dose reconstruction case review does, you 

19 know, have potential for identifying issues, 

20 is it, at this point?

21 And that will also be useful for 

22 thinking forward. How do you want to design 
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1 your Dose Reconstruction case reviews in the 

2 future so that, if they don't do that to any 

3 degree, they might?

4 MR. STIVER: One area where they 

5 might have actually done that, to some extent, 

6 would be in observations that we've made. Not 

7 formal findings, but issues that arise that 

8 really aren't within the current purview of 

9 the audit. But that may nonetheless still 

10 bear on the scientific issues, and we've kind 

11 of captured those in terms of observations, 

12 because they really, to this point at least, 

13 haven't been considered something that needs 

14 to be addressed in the DR review, but 

15 nonetheless, can be brought up for these types 

16 of discussions.

17 MR. FARVER: So which report would 

18 you like to go through first?

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We'll do it in 

20 any order that you think.

21 MR. FARVER: John, are you on the 

22 phone?
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Go through the 

2 look-back.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes, let's go through 

4 the look-back first.

5 MR. FARVER: Okay. Do we all have 

6 the look-back report?

7 MEMBER MUNN: November 20, right?

8 MR. FARVER: No. October 4.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, I've got October 

10 4.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Oh, okay. All right.

12 MR. STIVER: Actually, you know, 

13 in this one, there's a pretty good executive 

14 summary that kind of lets us know what the 

15 issues are here. Let me know when we're ready.

16 MEMBER MUNN: Go right ahead.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, go ahead.

18 MR. FARVER: Okay. We can start 

19 by going through the executive summary. 

20 Basically, what prompted this report is: when 

21 we do our DR reviews, we have a section in 

22 there, 1.3, where we list previous findings 
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1 that may be applicable to that case that 

2 weren't previously identified during a Site 

3 Profile review. So since the Site Profile had 

4 been updated at Rocky Flats, we chose to go 

5 through and see what had been changed and also 

6 added in information on SECs and PERs.

7 So that's the basis of this. And 

8 we can glance down at the first table, and it 

9 just shows that there were eight cases, in 

10 these sets from 10 to 13, for Rocky Flats.

11 And six of them out of eight were 

12 compensated by the SEC. It shows in the final 

13 column what DR version was used, and in many 

14 cases, it was the revised DR review. Not the -

15 - I'm sorry, it shows the date of the DR, 

16 which then will relate back to what version of 

17 the Site Profile was used. Table One 

18 basically shows eight cases, six of which were 

19 compensated.

20 In Table Two, for each of the 

21 cases, we will go through and identify 

22 findings from the Site Profile that will be 
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1 applicable to the case. We identified 11 

2 findings during our Site Profile review, and 

3 those 11 columns in Table Two represent the 11 

4 findings.

5 And for each case, you can see 

6 that they would be impacted to a certain 

7 extent by most of the findings. So that was 

8 the purpose of Table Two.

9 Table Three looks complicated.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Wait, that's 

11 Table ES Two, right?

12 MR. FARVER: Yes, ES Two and ES 

13 Three, yes.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, this is 

15 kind of a complicated table.

16 MEMBER MUNN: D means it's a 

17 duplicate. That means it's not addressed 

18 elsewhere.

19 MR. STIVER: Even for the two cases 

20 that were uncompensated by the SEC in Table ES 

21 Three on Page 12, those letters show that an 

22 R would indicate that really and truly, the 
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1 Site Profile explicitly addressed the issue.

2 P would mean that it partially 

3 addressed the issue, and then D refers to 

4 duplicate, because the issue was already 

5 addressed as part of another issue. And the 

6 letter N meant it would not be addressed in 

7 any of the revisions to the Technical Basis 

8 Documents.

9 Issue 11 was the only one that was 

10 not addressed in any of the documents. There 

11 were two that were duplicative. Number Seven 

12 and Eight for both cases. And now it is a 

13 partial address, if you want to call it that, 

14 for issue number two for both of them.

15 And so with the rest of this 

16 report, what we've done is: it just takes a 

17 look at all those issues that were open and 

18 addressed to the extent to which, just like in 

19 the tables, how those findings could possibly 

20 be, what their impact might be on those cases 

21 today using the current revisions of the TBDs.

22 And which of those could then be 
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1 closed out for the purposes of the dose 

2 reconstructions. To give you an idea, to kind 

3 of bring everything up to the current times, 

4 given the fact that these were done several 

5 years ago.

6 I don't know if there's really a 

7 lot more to say about that. It was really the 

8 intent of this particular exercise here.

9 Alright, Doug, if you'd like to --

10 if we want to go down to the end of this 

11 thing, it might be the best time to -- let's 

12 see.

13 MR. FARVER: I think one of the 

14 key things of the whole document is: you go 

15 through and you can see that there were 11 

16 issues identified through the Site Profile 

17 review, but I believe there are still many 

18 that have not been addressed.

19 There are some that have, but also 

20 many that have not. And a lot of that is 

21 summarized on Page 35, Table 2.3: "Summary of 

22 the Status of SC&A Site Profile findings."
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1 And that gives you the gist of it.

2 It says, you know, a lot of them were included 

3 in Revision Two, some were addressed on 

4 another issue, and some were unaddressed.

5 And so, you know, there's a few 

6 here that should probably, may want to be 

7 looked at at some other time. If you just 

8 glance at Table 2.3, under internal dosimetry, 

9 go down to, you know, ingestion, recycled 

10 uranium, you know, those items were 

11 unaddressed in the second revision.

12 MEMBER MUNN: They were addressed 

13 in other findings, though. The ingestion 

14 pathway and recycled uranium were.

15 MR. FARVER: Those specific ones 

16 for Rocky Flats?

17 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

18 MR. FARVER: Okay.

19 MR. STIVER: Ingestion has been 

20 addressed as kind of an overarching issue.

21 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

22 MR. FARVER: Okay. And you see in 
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1 the next column, the path would be to 

2 reevaluate this issue, so we'd have to go back 

3 to the text and find out why we felt it was 

4 not addressed and needs to be reevaluated. 

5 And really, I am not the best person to go 

6 through this because I had almost nothing to 

7 do with this report.

8 MR. STIVER: John Mauro is the 

9 principal author of this report. 

10 Unfortunately, he wasn't able to call in 

11 today. But, you know, the broad brushstrokes 

12 of the thing is that, you know, while some of 

13 these issues have, in fact, been addressed and 

14 are no longer pertinent to the dose 

15 reconstructions, some of them still are, there 

16 are certain aspects that need to be 

17 incorporated.

18 Even though the revision has taken 

19 place, the dose reconstruction has identified 

20 this as a potential problem that still needs 

21 to be resolved.

22 But also -- oh, go ahead, excuse 
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1 me.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I was going to 

3 say, Finding Three, if you're looking at 

4 Executive Summary Three, Finding Three in the 

5 body of the report is the neutron finding, 

6 right? It's got a couple of elements to it, 

7 but MP ratio and assignment, I think of people 

8 not monitored by NTA film, whatever.

9 I mean, it became a neutron issue 

10 as we evolved in the SEC discussions. And 

11 your next -- I mean, maybe I'm transitioning 

12 to your next report that Ted asked -- but it 

13 seems to me that was identified in the Site 

14 Profile review, correct?

15 MR. FARVER: Yes.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That issue? It 

17 wasn't really identified in any case.

18 MR. FARVER: Correct, so because 

19 it was identified in the Site Profile review, 

20 we would not make it a new finding.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But was it 

22 mentioned when you did your individual cases?
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1 MR. FARVER: It was contained 

2 within 1, 2 and 3 --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It was 

4 mentioned in the top section where you said --

5 MR. FARVER: -- where we talk 

6 about the findings.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- previous 

8 findings, right?

9 MR. FARVER: yes.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But those are 

11 never captured in our matrix process.

12 MR. FARVER: Those are not, because 

13 that would be double-tracking the finding.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's fine.

15 MR. FARVER: You know, one, it's a 

16 finding under Site Profile.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So, I mean, you 

18 were at least acknowledging that that issue 

19 remains on the table?

20 MR. FARVER: Right.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But you're not 

22 going to drill down to it in each and every 
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1 case?

2 MR. FARVER: No.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because it's in 

4 process, right?

5 MR. STIVER: Yes, it's identified 

6 that these are issues that would be pertinent 

7 to this case.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

9 MR. STIVER: They're still, you 

10 know, under review in the Work Group.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I'm just 

12 thinking, going forward, how these gaps can 

13 be, how we can be sure we don't have gaps and 

14 stuff.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

16 MR. FARVER: So for this set of 

17 cases, none of those would show a deficiency 

18 or a finding under neutron dose about the NTA 

19 finding?

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, because 

21 that was under review under the other --

22 right.
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1 MR. FARVER: So it would not 

2 identify an SEC issue for these cases that 

3 we're going to look at.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

5 MR. STIVER: It's really to notify 

6 the Subcommittee, you know, that these things 

7 are still in play and could impact these 

8 cases.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. It did more 

10 or less identify it by saying, in your report, 

11 in the body of your report, that these are 

12 outstanding issues.

13 MR. STIVER: That's right, and 

14 really this was one of the first things Dr. 

15 Melius wanted us to do is kind of look back 

16 and see, you know, are there still issues at 

17 play in the Site Profile that might bear on 

18 these cases at a later date, that they have in 

19 fact been addressed.

20 And that's why it was put in that 

21 Section 1.3 to begin with. And it's kind of, 

22 from there, we've kind of expanded on this 
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1 whole idea of how the different components are 

2 working together.

3 MR. FARVER: I can speak in more 

4 detail about the cases in the next report.

5 MR. STIVER: Unless you want us to 

6 discuss this more, I think we could segue into 

7 the next report.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, go ahead 

9 to the next report. Or go ahead, Wanda.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Well, I'm not sure I 

11 understood what that last exchange really said 

12 there, because I was reading the last 

13 paragraph of Finding Three here in the report.

14 That says, "In addition, the publication 

15 record that introduces the TBD states that 

16 many of the revisions explicitly address 

17 neutron exposures more importantly.

18 "An SEC was granted primarily 

19 based on issues related to the inability to 

20 reconstruct neutron exposures with sufficient 

21 accuracy. In light of the SEC, it appears 

22 that this issue can be closed, as it applies 
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1 to a given DR, except to confirm that the case 

2 was, in fact, appropriately reconsidered in 

3 light of the SEC."

4 That gives me a slightly different 

5 impression than what I got when I was looking 

6 at the table. It looks to me as if this was 

7 considered and handled appropriately.

8 MR. FARVER: Oh, I see what you 

9 mean. So you're saying --

10 MEMBER MUNN: See, it looks to me 

11 like it's done, and done correctly.

12 MR. FARVER: Whereas, when you look 

13 at the table and you see Finding Three --

14 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, it led me to 

15 believe that it was --

16 MR. FARVER: Well, what it says 

17 is, it was addressed in Revision Two --

18 MR. STIVER: And/or SEC.

19 MR. FARVER: -- and/or SEC and the 

20 next action would be "reviewed under a PER21 21." In other words, you get a PER-21 review 

22 just to make sure that the case fit into the 
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1 SEC.

2 MEMBER MUNN: Okay.

3 MR. STIVER: PER-21 is basically a 

4 one-pager that basically says we've revised 

5 all these TBDs and it's pretty open-ended, and 

6 that's the one we kind of put on hold.

7 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. Didn't seem 

8 to jibe to me.

9 MR. FARVER: Do we want to start 

10 the second report?

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, let's try 

12 that, let's go to the second report.

13 MR. FARVER: Alright. This is 

14 called RFP Issues from 10th to 13th sets. And 

15 probably went out not too long ago. And this 

16 refers specifically to the eight findings or 

17 the eight cases, Rocky Flats cases, from the 

18 10th through 13th sets.

19 And that's pretty much what the 

20 introduction states, and we go down to the 

21 first Table One, Summary of the Findings, it 

22 just shows that those were eight cases, the 
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1 cancer, and the date the DR was completed.

2 There was 14 findings in the eight 

3 DRs and one of the cases did not have any 

4 findings. So really, there were 14 findings 

5 out of seven reviews.

6 Table Two just lists a summary of 

7 the case findings. One of the things I like to 

8 point out is: even though they may have the 

9 same alphanumeric ending on them, referring to 

10 the same plan in the Table Two checklist we go 

11 by, they are for different items. They are 

12 not similar in any of the cases. They 

13 just wound up getting grouped under the same 

14 general criteria. But those are the 14 cases, 

15 and those are just the basic titles of the 

16 findings.

17 At the bottom of Page 5, we talked 

18 about the SEC and pretty much state the SEC, 

19 and the SEC pretty much has to do with the 

20 neutron data, as we're all aware.

21 Table Three shows what cases were 

22 compensated by the SEC and the reason they 
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1 were not compensated. There was one case that 

2 was initially not compensated, and I give a 

3 basic description of what happened.

4 There were some objections filed 

5 to the final adjudication branch and they went 

6 through a process of reviewing records and 

7 affidavits, and finally they determined that 

8 the individual met the SEC requirements. And 

9 so the individual was compensated by the 

10 Board, the Final Adjudication Board. It's a 

11 little different, that's why I had to kind of 

12 explain that there in the paragraph.

13 While our case reviews did not 

14 specifically identify the quality of the 

15 neutron dosimetry data as a deficiency, it was 

16 previously identified, as we saw, in the SC&A 

17 review of the Site Profile.

18 And, if you go back and look at 

19 our review of the Site Profile, it gives a lot 

20 more information than was even contained in 

21 the previous report. About the neutron, about 

22 our concerns about the neutron data.
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1 So the first question is: Did we 

2 identify any SEC issues in these cases, in our 

3 findings? And the answer is no. Okay. 

4 Next thing we're concerned about: 

5 Program Evaluation Report issues. There are 

6 three PERs issued, did any of our findings 

7 identify PER issues? So Table Four lists the 

8 three PERs, lists the effective dates, and a 

9 description of what the concerns are.

10 The first one is PER-10, and it's 

11 really for claims that were after August of 

12 2005. All of these eight cases that we looked 

13 at were completed -- oh, that's okay, make 

14 sure I got that wording right.

15 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Completed 

16 after 2005, I think that's right. Aren't you 

17 2006, `07 and `08?

18 MR. FARVER: Yes. The description

19 should say for claims before August 31, 2005.

20 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think that was

21 just a typo there.

22 MR. FARVER: Because all our 
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1 claims were after the date of the PER, so none 

2 of the PER -- or none of our cases are 

3 applicable for the PER-10, is the bottom line.

4 So we didn't have to worry about PER-10 issues 

5 on the claims that we looked at.

6 So now we move on to PER-12. It's 

7 for claims that were not evaluated for OTIB8 49, which is the highly insoluble plutonium. 

9 OTIB-49 was issued in February of 2007, so it 

10 would really be for claims that were -- is it 

11 showing four?

12 Four of the cases we looked at 

13 were completed before OTIB-49 became 

14 effective. So in each of those reviews, the 

15 SC&A did note that the case should be 

16 evaluated per the guidance of OTIB-49.

17 We have one little mistake in our 

18 one review of the one case. We recognize it 

19 should -- on our initial report, we did not 

20 have a reference to OTIB-49, but this is one 

21 of the benefits of having our one-on-one 

22 conversations with the Board.
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1 During the discussions at that 

2 time, it was asked, well, gee, should this be 

3 looked at for, you know, highly insoluble 

4 plutonium? It was determined yes. So we went 

5 to modify the case and we went and modified it 

6 incorrectly.

7 We put the wrong wording in our 

8 report. Meant well, just executed poorly. 

9 Overall, OTIB-49 did not have an impact on any 

10 of the four dose reconstructions we looked at, 

11 since all of those four were included in the 

12 SEC.

13 The four remaining cases were all 

14 completed after OTIB-49 was issued, and two 

15 were included in the SEC, were not impacted by 

16 OTIB-49. One of the cases, we did perform 

17 calculations of Type S and Super S plutonium 

18 and found M plutonium to be the best, the 

19 product who had the most dose in this case, 

20 which showed our conclusions were consistent 

21 with what they found in the DR.

22 There was only one case that was 
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1 impacted by OTIB-49, and the DR did modify the 

2 Type S plutonium dose according to the 

3 techniques in OTIB-49 and assign the plutonium 

4 dose to the breast from Super S plutonium.

5 So they did it correctly. So they 

6 evaluated it and did it correctly. That 

7 pretty much tells the story of each of the 

8 eight cases and how they relate to PER-12.

9 MR. SIEBERT: Hey, Doug? Just to 

10 verify -- I'm sorry to interrupt, just to 

11 verify for you, I looked at PER-10 and it is 

12 before August 31st, instead of after.

13 MR. FARVER: Before?

14 MR. SIEBERT: After.

15 MR. FARVER: Oh, thank you.

16 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Okay, good.

17 MR. SIEBERT: Sure.

18 MR. FARVER: The final PER was 

19 PER--21. And it was for claims that needed to 

20 be reviewed about new issues in the TBD, after 

21 the TBD was reissued. PER-21 was issued after 

22 the SEC designation for claims that were not 
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1 determined to be a member of the SEC.

2 It's an effective date of 

3 September 20 of 2007, and it determined which 

4 previously completed claims required 

5 evaluation for the effect of revising Rocky 

6 Flats TBDs and TIBs. Since five of the SEC 

7 cases reviewed were determined to be included 

8 in the SEC, PER-21 did not impact those.

9 The remaining three cases were 

10 completed before PER-21 became effective, 

11 therefore those DRs were reworked according to 

12 the revised Rocky Flats TBDs and TIBs. The 

13 SEC review in those three cases, we did not 

14 specifically identify that the TBDs or TIBs 

15 had been revised.

16 Because what we were looking at 

17 is, did they use the correct -- the revision 

18 of the document that they specified in their 

19 DR? So if the DR goes through and specifies, 

20 you know, we reviewed according to revision 

21 two, then we're going to go to revision two 

22 and see that they followed the appropriate 
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1 guidance.

2 Since the whole purpose of this 

3 PER was to go back and incorporate TBD 

4 revisions, we reviewed it to the actual TBD 

5 that changed, so we would not identify any TBD 

6 issues at that point.

7 And in those three cases, we 

8 determined that the dose reconstructor 

9 followed the approved revision to the TBD, so 

10 it was pretty uneventful from the PER point of 

11 view.

12 The final issue is procedural 

13 issues. We looked at the 14 findings and kind 

14 of made a determination: is our finding the 

15 result of a error in a procedure or guidance 

16 document? Did the dose reconstructor make a 

17 mistake? Did SC&A make a mistake? Or just not 

18 sure? And I entered that final section in 

19 because I went through these 14 and I just 

20 wasn't sure about one of them, and I didn't 

21 have a category for it.

22 And Table Five kind of lists the 
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1 findings, the type of error, the category I 

2 placed it under, and the description. Now we 

3 went through and I think our next step is to 

4 go through the Rocky Flats Los Alamos findings 

5 and NIOSH's responses and go through that.

6 I didn't include all that in this 

7 document, because that also included the Los 

8 Alamos, so I couldn't incorporate everything 

9 into one document. So you'll probably have 

10 questions on these, and we can discuss them in 

11 our next segment.

12 Well, we can go through. The 

13 first one, assigned missed photon doses were 

14 not consistent with the DR report. I say 

15 that's a DR error. And really it comes down 

16 to two items. The DR report states that the 

17 missed external dose was assessed as a best 

18 estimate, but it was an overestimate.

19 So it gets a little wording issue.

20 And also, the DR report states that 238 zero 

21 readings for missed dose were used, when 

22 actually only 196 were used. I kind of look at 
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1 this as a quality error. You know, you say one 

2 thing, you did another. On the second one, 

3 this is a little tricky one, and NIOSH gives a 

4 very good description in the -- when we go 

5 through their responses of the findings, but 

6 for a year, 1958, there was a dosimeter 

7 reading.

8 Well, it was a little confusing on 

9 our part because they assigned a shallow dose 

10 in 1958, but didn't assign a deep dose until 

11 '59. So we're going through and trying to do 

12 the bookkeeping, it didn't add up for the 

13 year, individually.

14 And we thought that was a little 

15 unusual. The third finding, inadequate 

16 information --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can I just 

18 interject?

19 MR. FARVER: Sure.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm wondering, 

21 just from a process standpoint, we're starting 

22 to go into the individual findings, and I 
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1 think that might be better served at a 

2 different point in our agenda.

3 MR. FARVER: Well, yes, it's how 

4 much you want me to go into these.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. And at 

6 some point, these are, I mean, you start 

7 grouping these, these are matrix 10 through 13 

8 findings from Rocky Flats, and we have 

9 responses from NIOSH on all these?

10 MR. FARVER: Yes.

11 MR. STIVER: And we have an 

12 updated matrix and all that.

13 MR. FARVER: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And you updated 

15 the matrix?

16 MR. STIVER: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. So I 

18 mean, I think right now, I'd prefer to speak 

19 to the larger purpose of this report.

20 MR. FARVER: Okay, the format for 

21 this document was to go through and give a 

22 basic description of the deficiencies and how 
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1 it all related to PERs and SECs and so forth.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: For instance, I 

3 mean, I'm looking at the -- you know, this 

4 whole question of: were issues that were 

5 identified as SEC issues later, were they 

6 identified in the reports or whatever? 

7 Looking at Table Three, I'm trying to, you 

8 know, figure out, out of the eight, you have 

9 five that ended up in the SEC; of those five, 

10 in each one of those documents, did you, in 

11 that summary section -- first of all, I don't 

12 know when we started, SC&A started 

13 implementing that 1.3 or whatever section John 

14 referenced, where you would say the findings 

15 were sort of in process at the Site Profile 

16 level? Did all those five cases have that 

17 identified in their report that's been issued?

18 MR. FARVER: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, so it was 

20 on the table, right? So, in terms of gaps or 

21 stuff missing, it's not necessarily that you 

22 missed it. You knew it was there, you knew it 
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1 was an issue. It's just, it might not be in 

2 our matrices, and that might be where, you 

3 know, we, as the Subcommittee, sort of miss 

4 it, because we pay more attention to the major 

5 findings than the body of your reports.

6 You know, I mean, that's just 

7 something that we need to figure out how, 

8 going forward, we don't lose that information, 

9 you know?

10 MR. FARVER: And it may be my 

11 fault, because I was under the impression that 

12 the Site Profile findings were being handled 

13 by the site Work Group.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, and I 

15 think you're right, and we'll, I think that's 

16 the next discussion moving forward.

17 MR. FARVER: And that's the basis 

18 why I didn't want to track them in two 

19 separate groups.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. I just 

21 sort of want to, I think it's important that, 

22 you said, "Did we identify any of these cases, 
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1 did we identify SEC issues?" The answer is no, 

2 you said.

3 MR. FARVER: Well, that's not 

4 quite correct. From our findings, we did not.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: From your 

6 findings, you did not?

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, the findings 

8 didn't describe what was the basis for the 

9 SEC.

10 MR. KATZ: Right, but the dose 

11 reconstruction case review did.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Did capture it.

13 MR. KATZ: It's just that issue 

14 that we're talking about here. I mean, it 

15 wasn't in your findings, and that -- we can 

16 think about that because that's just a 

17 consequence of the fact that the only findings 

18 that you resolve here are a different set of 

19 findings, not the findings that are being 

20 dealt with by a Site Profile group.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

22 MR. KATZ: SEC group. But they 
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1 were captured in the case review and that 

2 actually is kind of heartening.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, right.

4 MR. KATZ: But there's a balance 

5 there.

6 MR. STIVER: And if we get a case 

7 review that has, like a partial reviews, where 

8 an SEC has been granted, that will be in the 

9 description with the dose reconstruction.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. So I 

11 mean, I think that's yes, like Ted said, 

12 that's a good thing that we did identify it in 

13 all cases, realize that it was in process, but 

14 you know, the question going forward is how to 

15 communicate this information to the external 

16 world, and also make sure amongst all our Work 

17 Groups and Subcommittees that we know where 

18 all these things are.

19 They're in different bins, but we 

20 know what's going on. But I think part of 

21 Jim's concern was: you know, are we giving a 

22 sort of misrepresentation of how, you know, 
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1 like when we say there were no findings that 

2 changed the compensability of these cases, 

3 you're saying, well, in fact, there's seven 

4 resulted in SECs later, is that sort of, you 

5 know, misleading --

6 MR. FARVER: I think part of it 

7 is: the DR reviews are just a piece, the Site 

8 Profile reviews are a piece, and when we do 

9 SEC reviews, that's a piece.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

11 MR. FARVER: And so, you know, if 

12 you want to go and look back and say: have we 

13 already identified any issues that have turned 

14 into SECs? That's a separate question and you 

15 have to go look at all the pieces.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, exactly.

17 Well, that's what I'm saying. When you say 

18 you didn't find any of these things, that's 

19 true in the spirit of the revision of the 

20 findings. But you did acknowledge that it was 

21 --

22 MR. FARVER: Just a small piece.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

2 MR. FARVER: Okay, we don't have 

3 to go through all these findings, and I mean, 

4 you kind of get the gist of it. We'll be 

5 revisiting them shortly.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Any other 

7 questions on the bigger -- the look-back and 

8 these two are picks, not the individual 

9 findings?

10 MR. FARVER: Yes, I think in, you 

11 know, in the broader sense really, the 

12 conclusion we're drawing is that there has to 

13 be some mechanism in place for, you know, the 

14 different components that are measured to 

15 inform, you know, this Subcommittee of the 

16 current status and some way to incorporate all 

17 that into the final product.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, I think 

19 the struggle we've had, you know, from the 

20 beginning, was that a lot of times, we didn't 

21 want to hold up all these reviews to wait for 

22 one global issue to be resolved, which was in 
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1 another Work Group or another Committee, so we 

2 pushed forward, understanding that these 

3 issues were being worked on, not necessarily 

4 within the case reviews.

5 And I think it's just a matter of, 

6 like you said, making sure we acknowledge 

7 what's happening at all levels. I guess the 

8 other -- I mean, another challenge we've had 

9 is always that these case reviews are ahead of 

10 bigger work.

11 And the resolution for something 

12 like the NDRP issue at the SEC level, you 

13 know, took a while, so we're closing out cases 

14 before we have resolution on some big issues. 

15 You know, so that's the --

16 MR. KATZ: I think one thing you 

17 can do to handle this better and to reflect 

18 that sort of integration, is that when the 

19 Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee reports out 

20 in the future -- in the past, it's focused 

21 just on the findings. And so it misses these 

22 instances where there are other findings in 
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1 effect, but they're on hold because they're 

2 being dealt with in another venue.

3 So the report could acknowledge 

4 not just the findings, but also these other 

5 pending matters where a case review has 

6 identified, you know, a potential concern 

7 that's being resolved elsewhere. You could 

8 have a section of the report that addresses 

9 those methodological issues that are being --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm thinking 

11 that could cover every case, though, don't you 

12 think?

13 MR. KATZ: Yes.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean, every 

15 case that we -- if we have a lump of 30 cases 

16 and they cover 10 sites, almost every Work 

17 Group is still in process, you know, with 

18 outstanding findings to be resolved.

19 MR. KATZ: But the cases may not capture 

20 all that. I mean, that's what we -- again, we 

21 want the cases to capture that. We want the 

22 cases to identify those issues, but --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, but I 

2 mean, if we report out on 30 cases and say, 

3 you know, these 30 cases, in all cases we 

4 resolved all findings, no major findings. 

5 Except that all 30 of these cases have pending 

6 issues in other Subcommittees, I think that's 

7 kind of like -- why even issue a report, you 

8 know?

9 (Laughter.)

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, I mean, I'm 

11 not trying to be --

12 MR. KATZ: Yes, but that's not 

13 what you would say, I guess.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Well, 

15 how would we say it?

16 MR. STIVER: I don't know. We've 

17 been sensitive in terms of binning these cases 

18 by site and looking at what are the site 

19 issues that are still at play that are going 

20 to eventually impact these cases.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, binning 

22 them, I think that we all agree that's 
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1 something that's --

2 MR. STIVER: Yes, it might make 

3 organizing this report a little easier.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

5 MR. STIVER: And more informative 

6 to the Secretary.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But still, if 

8 we bin, you know, we do LANL next, then do you 

9 delay reporting out on the cases until the 

10 Site Profile Group is done with the work on 

11 LANL? You know what I'm saying? Or do you 

12 still have some of these? Because the pending 

13 issues are usually some of the bigger issues. 

14 They usually impact a lot of cases.

15 MR. STIVER: Well, I guess it 

16 depends on what you expect to get out of the 

17 cases themselves. If we were looking at --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, that's 

19 why --

20 MR. STIVER: -- the quality aspect 

21 of it, then you can go ahead and report as to 

22 what we find, you know, go ahead, there's 
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1 still issues at play here that are not going 

2 to be reflected in these cases because they 

3 still haven't been resolved.

4 But at the time that the case was 

5 done, this was the snapshot in time, and it's 

6 kind of a limitation of the process as it's 

7 evolved.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Again, I'm 

9 thinking of what we might want to do going 

10 forward.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, I was looking at 

12 Lew Wade's Phase One report and he kind of 

13 separated out these different elements in a 

14 way that seemed pretty reasonable as maybe a 

15 template for --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: What do you 

17 mean? Can you elaborate?

18 MR. STIVER: Just looking at, this 

19 is from back in 2011. The ten-year Phase One 

20 report, this is kind of the summary of it. 

21 But it talks about how the different types of 

22 dose reconstructions, the reworks, partials, 
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1 the Site Profiles and procedures, the aspects 

2 of, you know, the SEC that comes into play.

3 In trying to develop this going 

4 forward, a lot of this looks like it's kind of 

5 been laid out, you know, there's sort of like 

6 a template, if you will, that maybe we can 

7 build on. Like I said, if we do it right --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh no, no, no, 

9 I'm just trying to figure out what new was in 

10 there that hasn't been said already.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, there's nothing 

12 really new in there, but you still have the 

13 issue of what is to be expected from the DR 

14 audit.

15 MR. KATZ: Let me just take back 

16 some of what I just said we wouldn't say. We 

17 could have, I think you could have a report to 

18 the Secretary that lays out what you already 

19 lay out in terms of findings and so on, and 

20 then says, you know, "Within these 200 cases 

21 that have been reviewed, we have seven sites 

22 for which we have procedural issues, we have 
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1 concerns, and we're exploring, you know, 

2 through these other means."

3 And you could say it pretty 

4 succinctly, but it would indicate that there 

5 are outstanding procedural issues about how 

6 best processes are done that impact on the 

7 quality or validity of those dose 

8 reconstructions for those, whatever they are, 

9 seven sites, five sites, whatever it might be 

10 that's implied.

11 I think that would be a more 

12 accurate picture to give to the Secretary than 

13 simply the accounting that we do now, which is 

14 just based on this sort of narrower band of 

15 findings.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

17 MR. KATZ: I think that would then 

18 reflect the state of the quality --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, I agree, 

20 I wasn't completely making a joke about it, I 

21 think that's more accurate to put it that way.

22 At least it puts a -- well, it's not really a 
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1 qualifier in there, but it at least says there 

2 are still outstanding issues, but then it 

3 does, and it will, I think it will come out 

4 that what we're doing here is more on the 

5 quality type of issues.

6 And the bigger science issues tend 

7 to be playing out on the Site Profile 

8 committees.

9 MR. STIVER: And it's 

10 acknowledgment of the status of each 

11 particular site.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

13 MR. KATZ: And it wouldn't just be 

14 site-specific, it would be procedure-specific, 

15 too, because, for example, for a long time you 

16 had the ingestion issue. That was still sort 

17 of under resolution.

18 MR. FARVER: It might be important 

19 to point out what the different groups do. 

20 You know, because you have the Site Profile 

21 reviews, you have procedure reviews that 

22 impact multiple sites.
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1 MR. KATZ: I think the Secretary 

2 isn't interested in much process, the 

3 Secretary is just interested in results, but 

4 again, you could do that very succinctly, 

5 address those issues that are still on the 

6 table being examined by the Board.

7 The Secretary doesn't care what 

8 part of the Board is doing that, the Secretary 

9 would just be interested to know that, you 

10 know, for so many sites or for so many 

11 particular issues, you know, the Board is 

12 working on those with NIOSH.

13 MR. FARVER: It might be 

14 worthwhile to consider --

15 MR. KATZ: I think that's sort of 

16 innovative.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It might be the 

18 best we can do, I mean.

19 MR. STIVER: But having said that,

20 it might be a good idea to have at least some 

21 process information out there so they would 

22 understand why all these things are in 
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1 disparate states of completion.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Is this what 

3 you want to report to the Secretary, or do you 

4 want this to be internal document for the 

5 Board and staff to just keep an eye, I mean, 

6 so that we, you know, three weeks from now, 

7 will I remember what we were trying to keep in 

8 mind, what balls are up in the air?

9 Honestly, I won't, and it would be 

10 valuable to have it somewhere on paper so that 

11 or in the computer so that I can double-check 

12 it and that will help a lot. That would help 

13 certainly me a lot.

14 MR. KATZ: I mean, there's 

15 different parts of the Board dealing with 

16 different pieces. No one Board Member is 

17 going to know, and I'm probably exposed to 

18 more than most individual Board Members 

19 because you're all spread across different 

20 Work Groups and Subcommittees, but I think 

21 it's nice integrating for the reporting to the 

22 Secretary, which is something we have to do as 
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1 a Board.

2 And the other thing you can do, 

3 also, is to address in those reports, not just 

4 issues that are still pending, getting 

5 resolved, but those that have been put to bed.

6 So, I mean --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sure.

8 MR. KATZ: -- it would be nice, 

9 also, for example, the ingestion which has 

10 been put to bed, finally, I think, or just 

11 about. You know, that'll be a good place to 

12 report and consolidate that, too, that these 

13 improvements have been made in the NIOSH 

14 program.

15 MR. STIVER: Yes, there's been 

16 quite a few of them.

17 MR. KATZ: So I guess what I'm 

18 saying is, I mean, you could just sort of 

19 broaden this dose reconstruction review 

20 report. It was focused just on the case 

21 review alone, and you could broaden it a 

22 little bit so that it covers, really --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The report can 

2 be broadened?

3 MR. KATZ: Yes, exactly.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

5 MR. KATZ: Because again, the 

6 Secretary, you know, that's what the Secretary 

7 wants to know. This program, how's it doing?

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, and it 

9 always is generated as a report from the full 

10 Board anyway, it's not a Subcommittee report, 

11 so. No, that makes sense.

12 MR. STIVER: What kind of a 

13 timeline are we looking at as far as --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: For a report?

15 MR. STIVER: Providing a report to 

16 the Secretary?

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, I don't 

18 know. We haven't done one in a while. I 

19 think that was the pressure, you know?

20 MR. KATZ: And I think from the 

21 last Board discussion we had, I think there 

22 was considerable pressure to get to that state 
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1 pretty soon, which is why we tried to 

2 consolidate and fast-track some of this.

3 We're on this 10 to 13 sets and 

4 maybe want to be thinking about, as you close 

5 out Set 13, that being a good place to report 

6 out.

7 MR. STIVER: Yes, that might be a 

8 good spot to stop. Within the next six months 

9 or so, hopefully?

10 MR. KATZ: Yes, I would hope so.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We've reported

12 on one through five only?

13 MR. KATZ: Yes. Our first hundred 

14 cases, whatever that was.

15 MR. STIVER: I think it was the 

16 first five sets.

17 MR. KATZ: So yes, I think within 

18 the next six months to have a report to the 

19 Secretary would be a good thing, yes?

20 MR. STIVER: Yes.

21 MR. KATZ: Sort of nice, thinking 

22 of the new administration, too, so good timing 
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1 that way.

2 MR. STIVER: Along the lines of 

3 what Dave was saying, as far as informing some 

4 of the Board Members who might not have the 

5 broad spectrum, it might be a good idea to 

6 have some kind of internal presentation.

7 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm not sure what 

8 some of the other Subcommittees that I'm not 

9 on are doing, like the Procedures 

10 Subcommittee.

11 MEMBER MUNN: As much as possible, 

12 given the limitations we're --

13 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: And that would 

14 be useful.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: It's optimistic to 

16 know what the Subcommittees you are on are 

17 doing.

18 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right, but if 

19 we do it for the various Subcommittees.

20 MR. STIVER: If you're not 

21 intimately involved in these things, it can 

22 slip away really quickly.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Well, okay.

2 MR. KATZ: Or Stu was saying, even 

3 if you are.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm just trying 

5 to think of a way that you can, now that we're 

6 binning the cases, you know, doing Rocky 

7 Flats, doing -- although, as we get the 

8 smaller sites, obviously we're still going to 

9 have some single case reviews.

10 But as you do that, is there a 

11 way, since oftentimes when we're working on 

12 these, we're looking at the matrices. Is 

13 there a way to capture that Section 1.3 in the 

14 Rocky Flats matrix? Maybe if you're binning 

15 them by site --

16 MR. STIVER: If you're doing them 

17 by site, it certainly makes it a lot easier. 

18 Also, communicating with the Work Group Chair 

19 to get the information you need for updates.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, because 

21 that would be helpful just to keep us abreast 

22 of, you know, these are all Rocky Flats 
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1 findings. Remember, in Section 1.3 of all 

2 these reports we included, these are still 

3 open findings, or whatever.

4 MR. FARVER: Well, we don't know 

5 if they're open. We don't know what has been 

6 closed or what has been opened until we go 

7 back and look at revisions that have been 

8 made.

9 MR. STIVER: So that was the value 

10 of John's report, because he was able to show 

11 the status of where we are now relative to 

12 where we were.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So you don't 

14 know, you'd have to look back.

15 MR. FARVER: We'd have to go back 

16 and look at each one.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because these 

18 cases were done a while for you, yes. Oh, 

19 right. Yes.

20 MR. FARVER: That was the reason we 

21 found it might be useful to do one of these 

22 look-backs for each of the sets we discuss, 
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1 and if that was part of the Subcommittee 

2 discussion.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It does add 

4 another layer of work, you know?

5 MEMBER MUNN: A rather extensive 

6 layer.

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, I don't think we 

8 want to do that, I think we really just want 

9 to just answer the question with however many 

10 we had to look back at. We just wanted to 

11 answer the question at this point, how are 

12 these cases kept --

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I agree. 

14 But if we're going to report out at the end of 

15 the 13th set, I think we'd want to know sort 

16 of at this time, here's the remaining open 

17 issues at these sites.

18 MR. STIVER: Right, right. Here's 

19 our progress to date, here's what still 

20 remains.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

22 MR. FARVER: Now, if you could 
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1 task that to each of the Work Groups to look 

2 at those Site Profile findings and report back 

3 to us how many have been resolved.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

5 MS. LIN: And then start with 

6 LANL?

7 MR. STIVER: Doug, you're taking 

8 work away from us?

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Start with 

10 LANL, yes, assume they're all standard.

11 MR. STIVER: Yes, and Rocky is one 

12 of those few examples where, you know, there's 

13 been extensive revisions and all the workbooks 

14 and so forth have been updated. It's made it 

15 a good candidate for a trial, a pilot, I 

16 think.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

18 MS. BEHLING: This is Kathy. I 

19 hate to add this to the mix, but I have to 

20 say, it would have been nice if we could have 

21 had a database like Wanda's procedures 

22 database where all of the Work Groups could 
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1 have fed in their findings --

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I knew that was 

3 coming from Kathy.

4 MR. KATZ: Stop, stop.

5 MR. STIVER: I'm glad you said it, 

6 because you saved me the trouble.

7 MS. BEHLING: I'm sorry, but that 

8 would certainly be helpful for everyone, if 

9 you had a database that all of the Work Groups 

10 could feed into and we could all look at that 

11 database and see where is that Work Group and 

12 where is the findings?

13 MEMBER MUNN: And how many things 

14 are closed.

15 MS. BEHLING: Having a database is 

16 a lot of work, but it has certainly, I think, 

17 paid off and, I think, Wanda can comment on 

18 that, if she'd like.

19 MEMBER MUNN: I wasn't going to 

20 say anything, Kathy.

21 MS. BEHLING: Sorry.

22 MEMBER MUNN: It's all right.
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1 MR. STIVER: Well, the Board 

2 Review System gets us about 90 percent there, 

3 it's working magnificently in the Procedures 

4 Subcommittee.

5 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, catches it very 

6 well. Makes it easy to check anytime. By 

7 anyone.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So yes, I'm not 

9 sure where we are now with that, other than 

10 the sidetrack of my brain going to thinking 

11 about the database issue. I mean, I think 

12 part of my concern with the database was that 

13 you lose exactly that, when you start talking 

14 about pie graphs and the closed 90 of 101, and 

15 therefore we're almost successful -- you know, 

16 you got an A for a grade.

17 You know, and people lose the --

18 you're not reading the findings. Maybe the 

19 database has evolved a little bit, but 

20 initially, I remember, you couldn't even get 

21 to the documents in the database.

22 MR. STIVER: You can have 
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1 attachments and links and it's really quite 

2 nice. A list of the findings, who made the 

3 comment and when it was resolved and so forth.

4 If we could have a situation where Work Group 

5 Chairs could feed in as findings are resolved 

6 in their Site Profile reviews, could go in and 

7 it would be a situation where ideally, you'd 

8 be able to open up a case and look through the 

9 relational database, see every issue and 

10 document that pertains to that and how it's 

11 been addressed.

12 MEMBER MUNN: It's not the 

13 flexibility of the program that's now the 

14 issue, the issue is whether it is considered 

15 usable by the people who could be using it.

16 MR. STIVER: Right.

17 MR. KATZ: What we talked about 

18 doing in the Procedures Subcommittee for the 

19 rest of the Work Groups is having SC&A staff, 

20 at least, start using it for each Work Group 

21 instead of doing these independent matrices, 

22 start using it as the matrix generator, et 
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1 cetera.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I think 

3 you're actually -- didn't you start to 

4 construct one for the DR Subcommittee?

5 MR. STIVER: Well, we haven't 

6 actually done it, we're still using the matrix 

7 and working back and forth with Scott and 

8 folks over at DCAS.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, but I 

10 thought you initially --

11 MR. STIVER: We haven't actually 

12 generated a separate database. We have the 

13 old database, the old access database.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Oh, okay.

15 MR. STIVER: Which we used to use.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes.

17 MR. STIVER: But we could easily 

18 resurrect that. It still wouldn't be 

19 something that we'd dovetail into the --

20 MR. KATZ: The DR Subcommittee, we 

21 talked about in the Procedures Subcommittee, 

22 is the least good fit, right, for the --
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: DR is probably the 

2 least good fit, they would have to design some 

3 business rules, because it's the -- the 

4 procedures review is sort of document-based, 

5 you know, this is the document we reviewed, 

6 here are the findings of that.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: And so then when 

9 you get to dose reconstruction, you have to 

10 draw some rules about: what is the thing we 

11 reviewed? Is that thing we reviewed the Set 1 

12 report or, you know, say the Set 11 report, or 

13 a group of dose reconstructions to go over?

14 Or is each reviewed case a 

15 document that was reviewed? I think that's 

16 the fundamental business rule to this decision 

17 that has to be made. Once we do that, if we 

18 said, for instance, each case reviewed is its 

19 one own, quote, "document," from then it seems 

20 pretty analogous to the procedures process.

21 Because you have a series of 

22 findings under that document that get loaded 
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1 and then the conversation and resolution can 

2 occur. I mean, if that's the business rule we 

3 make, then that can be done.

4 Now that puts some 300 additional 

5 documents into the system, and there'd have to 

6 be some sort of naming convention that we 

7 would stick to very rigorously, so that 

8 everything would work.

9 But that seemed to me to be the 

10 easiest fit to get that process to work, that 

11 application to work on these.

12 MR. STIVER: Okay.

13 MR. KATZ: One thought I had that 

14 might be a consolidating rule for that, but it 

15 has an issue with it, would be if you did it 

16 by site, case sets by site, as opposed to case 

17 sets. But the problem is: some cases, of 

18 course, cross numerous sites, so I don't know 

19 if that works, but otherwise -- I mean, 

20 especially now that we're going down the track 

21 of reviewing Rocky Flats cases and then 

22 reviewing LANL cases and sort of work with 
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1 that, but --

2 MR. STIVER: I wish we had a -- we 

3 could have a category for multiple sites, but 

4 I don't know if that would work in real 

5 practice, but I was thinking, when Stu was 

6 talking, that that would be a good idea for, 

7 you know, looking at it by site, because a lot 

8 of the findings are going to be similar.

9 So you want to track all these 

10 findings for all these different documents 

11 that are essentially the same thing, or do you 

12 want to look at by site? Here are the findings 

13 of these cases, you know.

14 MR. KATZ: Yes, it'd make the 

15 relational issues much easier, for that 

16 matter, right?

17 MR. HINNEFELD: If you want to 

18 pursue this, we should have a design meeting 

19 with our developer group. And whoever wants 

20 to be engaged in this design meeting can let 

21 me know, and we'll try to set something up.

22 Doug should definitely be there, 
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1 Wanda, since you're common to both, you'd be a 

2 good one to be there. Mark, yes. And John.

3 MR. STIVER: And possibly, I don't 

4 know who you would want from IT, we have a 

5 very good database person at SC&A, Don Loomis.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: If we're going to 

7 use our application, our people are going to 

8 want to do it. I mean, I've got no knock 

9 against it, and the people I've worked with on 

10 your side, the database people that I worked 

11 with, I've got a lot of respect for.

12 Our data people are going to want 

13 to do it, so if we're going to build it, make 

14 it a module, what it would be would be a 

15 module of what we call the Board Review 

16 System. It's not called procedure review 

17 system, it's called Board Review System.

18 You make a module there, you 

19 design it so then when you select one of the 

20 drop-downs of which Work Group you want to 

21 look at, then you would pick "Dose 

22 Reconstruction Subcommittee" and it would pull 
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1 up then the documents that were reviewed by 

2 the Dose Reconstruction Subcommittee. And 

3 that would be --

4 MR. STIVER: And you could put all 

5 the other Work Groups in, too, ideally, right?

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Most of them are 

7 already on there on the menu. So, okay, and 

8 then we'll bring probably Laurie, because 

9 she's familiar with the other one. But we'll 

10 bring some folks from our side, and then we 

11 can set this up, and I guess we'd do this 

12 telephonically, although sometimes it works 

13 better in person.

14 MR. KATZ: Well, we could travel 

15 to the facility, too, you know.

16 MR. HINNEFELD: Up to our place.

17 MR. STIVER: We've done that 

18 before.

19 MR. KATZ: Yes, and then people 

20 who can't travel can connect to the phone.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

22 MR. STIVER: I want Kathy to be on 
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1 it, too.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: How about 

3 timing-wise for the design meeting? What are 

4 we looking for? The Board meeting's in two 

5 weeks, you want to try to get it in before 

6 then?

7 MR. STIVER: No.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.

9 MR. STIVER: After that we've got 

10 the holidays.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: After that we're 

12 getting into the holidays, so we're looking at 

13 the start of --

14 MR. STIVER: Early in January.

15 MR. KATZ: When it can be 

16 arranged.

17 MR. STIVER: Do what we got to do, 

18 yes.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay, I think that 

20 we'll take that, we'll start looking for 

21 potential dates in January, and I'll include 

22 Ted in any correspondence, and the people I 
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1 can think of who should be there. I can copy 

2 off, I'll copy all Subcommittee Members so 

3 whoever can chime in to be there or not.

4 And then we'll start looking for 

5 available dates in the calendar in January. 

6 I don't have a lot of January to work with. 

7 First part of January, kind of available. 

8 Okay --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The design 

10 process should be faster since Wanda's worked 

11 most of the bugs out, right?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: We've got a --

13 MR. STIVER: Actually, it's pretty 

14 amazing.

15 MR. HINNEFELD: We've got a system 

16 that we'll want to be making this a module of, 

17 so there'll be some constraints, and we'll be 

18 working within those constraints. But, okay. 

19 We want to come in with the ideas of what we 

20 want to be able to do with, you know, when we 

21 have all these findings in there, how do we 

22 want to look for them, how do we want to grab 
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1 them?

2 Because there could be some data 

3 fields we're going to have to add in order to 

4 be able to do what we want to do.

5 MR. FARVER: Would this also 

6 incorporate the Site Profile findings?

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, it's built 

8 to. It's built to.

9 MR. FARVER: Aren't those pretty 

10 much covered in the procedures, the Site 

11 Profile issues?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: Actually, no.

13 MR. FARVER: Are we going to have 

14 any TBD issues in there?

15 MR. HINNEFELD: No.

16 MEMBER MUNN: You have TBDs --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: Most of the Site 

18 Profile reviews are not in there because the 

19 findings on the Site Profile Reviews are dealt 

20 with in matrices by the individual Work Group.

21 MR. FARVER: But we want to do 

22 that.
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1 MR. STIVER: Eventually we'd want 

2 to migrate that over to the --

3 MR. HINNEFELD: And the system was 

4 built with the idea that those would all be 

5 moved in there, also.

6 MEMBER MUNN: That it would all 

7 eventually be encompassed.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

9 MR. STIVER: So limit this meeting 

10 to just the cases or try to tackle all the 

11 issues?

12 MR. HINNEFELD: I think the first 

13 step would be, if we want to move this 

14 Subcommittee there first, the design meeting 

15 should be this Subcommittee. We want these 

16 findings in there. And then we'll have an 

17 additional group of Board Members who are 

18 familiar with the application and we'll have 

19 maybe more, maybe some of these Board Members 

20 on site-specific Work Groups they're on will 

21 say, we think this is worthwhile, let's move 

22 this design into now our -- now the design 
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1 should be less once you get to one site.

2 Once you do one site, you would 

3 hope that all the rest of them would be in 

4 position --

5 MR. STIVER: The rest of them 

6 should fall in line.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Right, you've got 

8 a design for all of them.

9 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: So, but this would 

11 be the hard design.

12 MR. STIVER: The first one is the 

13 tough one.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, I mean, I

15 think the big factor convincing me is that you 

16 have the other site Work Groups. I mean, I 

17 think if those aren't there, I still don't see 

18 the great improvement.

19 MR. HINNEFELD: It's all built.

20 MR. KATZ: There's nothing else --

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Nothing prevents 

22 us from working today. I'm sorry, Ted.
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1 MR. KATZ: Sorry.

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Nothing prevents 

3 us from working today except -- I'm sorry if I 

4 want to talk over top of you anyway. 

5 Nothing prevents us from doing that today, 

6 except loading in what the most current matrix 

7 is, and then I don't know how much history we 

8 can reconstruct to put in there, but we could 

9 get in where we are today on maintenance.

10 MR. KATZ: So what I was going to 

11 say, which is consistent with what Stu was 

12 saying, is what we agree is that we would 

13 start doing this going forward, not 

14 retrospectively, but there's nothing stopping 

15 us now.

16 The system's built to use for a 

17 Work Group that's reviewing, for example, a 

18 Site Profile. That's a document. That goes 

19 in, there's no trouble putting that document 

20 in, the Site Profile, all those TBDs.

21 There's no problem putting in the 

22 reviews from SC&A, that's all set up and ready 
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1 to go, to pop it in. And there's no problem, 

2 then, beginning to use the matrix that's built 

3 into the system already to capture findings 

4 and their state of resolution and all that. 

5 That's all built in already.

6 So it's really just starting to 

7 use it. That's all that's needed. For the 

8 Work Groups that -- I mean, the one limitation 

9 will be that, for a lot of Work Groups that 

10 already covered, you know, a lot of water 

11 under the bridge, that won't already be put 

12 into the system, all of that history of what's 

13 been resolved. That won't be there. But going 

14 forward, it would be easy to start up using it 

15 tomorrow for any given Work Group, I think, 

16 right?

17 MEMBER MUNN: Any site-specific 

18 Work Group.

19 MR. KATZ: Right, that's what I'm 

20 talking about, site-specific.

21 MR. STIVER: And really, how hard 

22 would it be to load up the history? Once you 
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1 have the module in place, then you can 

2 populate it with all the documents pertaining 

3 to that particular site.

4 MR. KATZ: Yes, absolutely. 

5 Documents are not a problem. It's all the 

6 issue resolution, some of that history would 

7 be harder to --

8 MR. STIVER: Yes, it'd be tough.

9 MR. KATZ: But yes, it can all be 

10 put in, it's just it's a good bit of work. 

11 It's a lot of loading.

12 MEMBER MUNN: It would be, and it 

13 would be very time-burdensome for someone to 

14 be --

15 MR. STIVER: Well, at least to 

16 have it going forward, we certainly have that 

17 --

18 MEMBER MUNN: Well, yes, but site19 specific Work Groups, as Ted said, can drop 

20 into it immediately.

21 MR. HINNEFELD: Steve Marschke 

22 would be a good attendee.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

2 MR. STIVER: Oh, absolutely. 

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, we can 

4 have, this may be more detail for the design 

5 discussion, but for the DR segment, I think 

6 starting at the 6th set of cases going forward 

7 would be helpful. Even though we closed out 

8 the six and seven, we haven't reported out on 

9 those, so it would be nice to have them.

10 MEMBER MUNN: Well yes, but we 

11 have records of them, our records are good. 

12 It just will have to be a slightly different 

13 mechanism for input, that's all.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And on those, 

15 you won't have the history of the back and 

16 forth, but you'll at least have the final --

17 okay. All right, I think we're on the next 

18 item. Maybe we should take a ten-minute 

19 break.

20 And then come back, and we want to 

21 talk about the DR method going forward.

22 MR. FARVER: You want to do that 
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1 first and then go into the specific findings 

2 later?

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

4 (Whereupon, the above-entitled 

5 matter went off the record at 2:51 p.m. and 

6 resumed at 3:04 p.m.)

7 MR. KATZ: We're back on line, 

8 Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction Review.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Moving 

10 on to the next agenda item, which is the one I 

11 wanted to start right after lunch, revisiting 

12 the Board's Dose Reconstruction case review 

13 process. Identification of options for path 

14 forward. And you've sent us this -- this got 

15 circulated to everyone, right? No, okay. 

16 Have you circulated anything to everyone?

17 MR. KATZ: No.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, okay. All 

19 right. Okay.

20 MR. KATZ: No, I haven't.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I thought 

22 everyone had those documents.
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1 MR. KATZ: No. And we can't 

2 actually. We cannot have them.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. Alright. 

4 The thing I'm speaking of is the, it's got 

5 some of the background on the, from our past 

6 approach and some possible ways to modify 

7 that. So --

8 MR. KATZ: I mean, Mark, you have 

9 distributed to everybody the old language on 

10 the dose reconstruction methods, dose 

11 reconstruction review methods. And, Mark, 

12 you, before the last meeting you distributed 

13 those to everybody. I don't if everybody has 

14 spent any time --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Does everyone 

16 have those or?

17 MS. LIN: Mark, I think you need 

18 to add me to your distribution list.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I don't 

20 know that I just, I think I sent it to Ted 

21 last time.

22 MS. LIN: Yes, if it's from Ted, 
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1 then I should have it.

2 MR. KATZ: So that goes back a 

3 good deal of time.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Was it in the 

5 June meeting or I think we had an August 

6 meeting, didn't we?

7 MR. KATZ: Yes, we had an August 

8 meeting and so it would have been before that.

9 MEMBER MUNN: And so this was

10 August, you said?

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I just thought 

13 it would be something, you know, to initiate 

14 the conversation. Okay. This isn't the right 

15 document, this is ranking file.

16 MR. KATZ: No.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. So

18 let me, I'll just give an overview of what we 

19 did initially and then sort of the idea going 

20 forward or any of our ideas going forward. 

21 And I think part of what we want to do is 

22 update our internal procedure just on how we 
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1 do these things. If nothing else, to reflect 

2 the reality of what's going on right now.

3 I saw Doug's, no, I want a look of 

4 concern because part of it was the, I think 

5 the initial procedure was written when we 

6 first started the Board two years in maybe. 

7 And the process has evolved on the 

8 Subcommittee. So what we're really doing now 

9 is not exactly reflected in the initial 

10 procedure. So at the very least we should 

11 update our own protocol to reflect what's 

12 happening.

13 But initially we had envisioned 

14 something called an advanced review, a basic 

15 review and blind reviews for the three types 

16 of case reviews. And I guess what sort of 

17 ended up happening was that a lot of the 

18 questions that would be taken up in what I was 

19 envisioning as a more advanced review, ended 

20 up going to the Site Profile process.

21 So the questions of data integrity 

22 or the questions of, you know, larger issues 
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1 on like neutron dosimetry. Those type of 

2 issues ended up going either to Site Profile 

3 Work Groups or to, I don't know where we ever 

4 been with things like ingestion or --

5 MR. KATZ: Procedures.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I think 

7 they ended up in Procedures, right.

8 MEMBER MUNN: Right and they're in 

9 our, they're now incorporated in our process 

10 as overarching issues we're tracking. Many of 

11 them -- I shouldn't say many of them. Some of 

12 them lie in the Work Groups of one sort or 

13 another where they're actively pursuing them 

14 rather than in Procedures but that's where 

15 we're tracking them.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right, so, you 

17 know, the question is, to consider is, you 

18 know, I think the vision of advanced and basic 

19 sort of evolved into, as Ted said earlier in 

20 our side discussion, a hybrid of the two where 

21 we weren't necessarily doing what I had 

22 envisioned as an advanced, except in the case 
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1 of the mini Site Profile type reviews.

2 I think those I would consider as 

3 what I was originally thinking of as advanced 

4 reviews because those are the cases where we 

5 have an AWE site, we pull one case and there's 

6 likely never going to be a, well in a lot of 

7 those cases there is not a Site Profile 

8 anyway. So we treated them as like, you know, 

9 do the Site Profile and the case review all in 

10 one, as one function. So that would be sort 

11 of falling under the category of advanced 

12 review.

13 The other ones tend to be more, as 

14 we've seen a lot of the findings we're having 

15 are more quality related and we may 

16 acknowledge some of these bigger issues just 

17 as we just discussed. But a lot of those are 

18 being taken care of in the Site Profile 

19 process.

20 And then there's the question, 

21 which was our two agenda items ago, of the 

22 blind reviews and where they fit into this 
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1 process. So I guess that's what we want to 

2 flush out. Do we think the current model 

3 should be unaltered?

4 Do we, how do we want to, since we 

5 really haven't done a lot with the blind 

6 reviews, do we want to continue that? Do we 

7 want to have more blind reviews, to what end, 

8 what are they going to be, what's the utility 

9 of them? And I guess that's the question on 

10 the table.

11 MEMBER MUNN: Well my question 

12 would be whether our current process is 

13 illuminating any problems that we see that we 

14 feel should be addressed that aren't. Or it 

15 seems to me we've done a pretty good job of 

16 identifying what we need to be looking at; 

17 whether we're looking at it in the correct way 

18 may be another issue for consideration.

19 But I'd be interested in hearing 

20 what anyone might feel is a shortcoming in our 

21 current approach. Revising what we're doing 

22 is always a good idea if we see that we're 
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1 leaving something significant out of our 

2 process. If we're not then --

3 DR. MAURO: Wanda, this is John 

4 Mauro. I've been on the line for a little 

5 bit.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Well hi there, John.

7 DR. MAURO: Hi, and I've been 

8 listening in. And I was just going to listen.

9 But it turns out I have, I'm doing something 

10 right now that goes right to the question, at 

11 least part of it that I wanted to just mention 

12 to the group.

13 I'm actually reviewing a case 

14 right now that comes out of Dow Chemical. And 

15 you know the section in our DR reviews where 

16 we call it Section 1.3, where we list all of 

17 the issues that were identified by SC&A having 

18 to deal with the Site Profile. And I think 

19 everyone's familiar with that, it's what I 

20 called Section 1.3. And we list the issues.

21 What I've just done that I think 

22 goes a little bit toward what we're talking 
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1 about is instead of just listing the issues, 

2 since I'm so familiar with TBD-6000 and with 

3 the various appendices that go with it, it 

4 turns out Dow is part of that process, I put 

5 in a paragraph under each of the original 

6 findings that were associated with our review 

7 of TBD-6000 and Appendix C of TBD-6000, which 

8 deals with Dow.

9 And I put a paragraph in saying 

10 where are we with regard to each of those 

11 issues. And it turns out that an awful lot, 

12 at least in the case of Dow and TBD-6000, all 

13 of the original issues that we raised all the 

14 way back since, you know, our first review 

15 that we list in Section 1.3 now, have been 

16 resolved.

17 And I put a little paragraph 

18 saying this issue, you know, was resolved by 

19 the, it could be the TBD-6000 or the Dow 

20 process. So all I'm saying is that it might 

21 be worthwhile when we do our DR reviews and we 

22 put in the list of issues that deal with the 
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1 Site Profile, in Section 1.3, that with a 

2 little bit more homework and it wasn't that 

3 difficult to do by the SC&A people working 

4 with the other SC&A people saying okay, where 

5 are we.

6 For example if it's Rocky, I get 

7 in touch with Joe Fitzgerald. Joe, where are 

8 we on issue number one? And you add a 

9 paragraph so that right there in the DR 

10 review, you know, in addition to doing what we 

11 always do in putting in 1.3 issues, a little 

12 paragraph saying what the status is of those 

13 issues. 

14 And that would bring, that would 

15 make every one of the case, the DR review 

16 cases, current and it would also alert the, 

17 your Subcommittee to perhaps interact with 

18 the, let's say the Rocky Subcommittee if there 

19 are issues there that are still, either they 

20 may have been addressed in a more recent 

21 version of a Site Profile, but they have not 

22 yet been resolved or they may have been 
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1 addressed and resolved.

2 And all of that could be captured 

3 when you do the actual DR. And I think it 

4 could be done pretty easily by SC&A people 

5 just simply talking to the other SC&A people 

6 that are involved with that particular site. 

7 And I would offer that up as at least a piece 

8 of one way to sort of capture the current 

9 status of affairs and marry Site Profile work 

10 with DR review work.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You can say 

12 database now if you want. John, I don't know 

13 if you heard. We were just discussing the 

14 possibility of migrating the DR data to the 

15 database, similar to the Procedures Committee.

16 So and then if we also did that with the Site 

17 Profile, you know, that would make this 

18 marriage maybe even easier, you know.

19 DR. MAURO: And you guys are way 

20 ahead of me. Wonderful, beautiful, thank you.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So you haven't 

22 been on the call very long because we did that 
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1 just before break.

2 DR. MAURO: I did catch a piece of 

3 it. But I was thinking more in terms of that 

4 1.3. But you folks have gone way past 1.3.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm just 

6 thinking of billable hours, you know. Anyway, 

7 okay.

8 DR. MAURO: Okay, anyway. I had 

9 my say, thank you.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Good point, 

11 John. We miss you at these meetings.

12 DR. MAURO: I miss you guys too. 

13 Are you kidding me?

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So that is one 

15 point and that's, yes, I agree with that 

16 completely. But you know, I think the 

17 challenge, I was talking with Ted a little bit 

18 on the break and before this meeting was that, 

19 I guess the, for me some of the gray area is

20 this area of you're doing a DR review and you, 

21 you know, you I guess we don't want to get it 

22 so narrow that it's only looking at the number 
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1 in the NIOSH, you know, just a strict 

2 procedure review.

3 You know, in other words did they 

4 follow the procedure and their numbers match 

5 our numbers that we got using the same 

6 protocol. If something looks awry, it should 

7 be noted in the report. And I, that might 

8 fall into the things like John was saying, the 

9 observations, you know, that you're, that you 

10 make that, you know, might bring up other 

11 issues that aren't really in the Site Profile.

12 You know what I mean, yes.

13 MR. FARVER: No, I don't. Could 

14 you give an example of what you're getting at?

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well, you know, 

16 I guess, you know, if you're just looking at, 

17 if it's just a strict I look at the DR Report, 

18 this would just be another peer-review if 

19 you're doing it, if you're going to have a 

20 checklist and you're going down and saying, 

21 okay, if I use procedure so and so as they've 

22 prescribed and I put in this number I get the 
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1 same number they got, check, right?

2 MR. FARVER: Well I mean that's a 

3 big part of it.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

5 MR. FARVER: There's the other 

6 part is --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's the part 

8 I'm interested in is the other part. What's 

9 the other part, right?

10 MR. FARVER: The other part is can 

11 you get the guy in the right building? 

12 Neutron dose comes to mind.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, that's a 

14 good one. That's a good example you just gave 

15 my example.

16 MR. FARVER: -- neutron dose. So 

17 we do look at those things.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the CATI 

19 stuff is an example.

20 MR. STIVER: Yes, those are the 

21 three elements really. You know, and that 

22 last one is, you know worker placement and 
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1 scenario development, that's probably the 

2 biggest in terms of size. Those are the 

3 category a, b and then the c and d were the 

4 models, whatever those were.

5 MR. FARVER: And it's also things 

6 like --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I can think 

9 of another one might be the assumptions on the

10 internal dose. You know that when you follow 

11 procedures, you know, and according to 

12 procedure their numbers work out, we got the 

13 same numbers, however, we have some question 

14 about the assumption for using Class N, you 

15 know, and those kinds of things.

16 MR. FARVER: Yes.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And they may 

18 fall into Site Profile, but they may not, I 

19 guess.

20 MR. FARVER: And we've had this 

21 combative discussion before about whether it's 

22 chronic or is it several acutes or how should 
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1 we consider this? And so those things do come 

2 up.

3 MR. STIVER: The only concern I 

4 have about that is once we, you know, if we 

5 were to get into those issues here it would be 

6 basically, essentially replicating what would 

7 be going on the --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well that's 

9 what I'm saying. There's this --

10 (Simultaneous speaking.)

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- little bit 

12 of a gray area.

13 MR. KATZ: They don't have to be 

14 resolved here, but the issue is wanting, 

15 making sure that they're identified in the 

16 case. Whether they get resolved, they 

17 probably would get resolved in the Site 

18 Profile Work Group. But we'd want to capture 

19 that in the case.

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MR. STIVER: Otherwise it might 

22 just slip off the radar scope altogether and 
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1 never get back.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: See my fear is 

3 if you, I mean, part of the reason for doing 

4 individual case reviews is that it might open 

5 your eyes to something that people weren't 

6 thinking about when they were designing the 

7 bigger profile. So if you see something that 

8 says, wait a second, you know, we know there 

9 were, you know, they've sort of resolved this 

10 but this brings new light onto this. This 

11 doesn't really fit into this model that 

12 they've adopted before.

13 MR. FARVER: We try to mention 

14 things that we're not sure about or don't 

15 really make sense to us. And I think you'll 

16 see in some of the findings we talked about 

17 we're not necessarily so concerned about, that 

18 they did it wrong.

19 It's why did you do it that way? 

20 And if you want to do it that way we don't 

21 really have a concern, but let's put it in the 

22 documentation so that everybody knows to do it 
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1 that way.

2 DR. MAURO: This is John again. 

3 Let me second that. That's exactly what 

4 happened to me about a day ago when I was 

5 reviewing this Dow case. And I noticed they 

6 used a particular dose conversion factor. And 

7 something that, you see when we do a Site 

8 Profile review we operate at a certain level 

9 of granularity.

10 When you do a DR review you're 

11 actually going in and matching the person's 

12 numbers one by one, every number that's in 

13 that, you know, the IREP input. And all of a 

14 sudden you don't realize it, but you're really 

15 getting down into the bowels of exactly the 

16 procedure down to the finest level you could 

17 imagine. And things start to emerge that 

18 didn't emerge before. And you try to, well I 

19 document that in the case. What I'm saying is 

20 --

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Such as, yes.

22 DR. MAURO: Yes, no I mean, 
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1 actually I have things brought up more of 

2 observations, they follow the rules but all of 

3 a sudden we realize, wait a minute. This 

4 rule, it never really dawned on us that, you 

5 know, until you really get down to using it, 

6 it's a funny sort of thing.

7 You think when you do your Site 

8 Profile review, you know, you really capture 

9 everything. I hate to say this but, you know, 

10 when we do our Site Profile reviews we go 

11 vertical on certain issues. But other things 

12 we leave alone. You have to make a choice, 

13 make a choice as to where you're going to 

14 delve. 

15 But when you get to the DR review 

16 I can't tell you how much you realize this, 

17 well this has happened to me anyway, when I 

18 actually try to match numbers then I really 

19 get this complete rich understanding of the 

20 exposure matrix that's in the Site Profile of 

21 all the procedures that are referenced, 

22 whatever they are and actually implement them 
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1 myself to see how they were actually used in 

2 this case.

3 What I'm getting at is the DR 

4 review process is the most powerful tool that, 

5 you know, and of course the SEC, that's 

6 another thing all together. But I'm saying 

7 the DR review process, it is a driver that 

8 gets you right down into the bowels of 

9 everything that's going on in this program.

10 And it's not until you actually do 

11 a case that the complete understanding of how 

12 everything is being done and where things may 

13 be, you know, not entirely consistent, where 

14 there are judgments being made. So I, in my 

15 mind, I think the DR Subcommittee and the 

16 things you're talking about right now are the 

17 most powerful, important things going on other 

18 than SEC issues.

19 Everything is subservient, the 

20 procedure reviews, the Site Profile reviews, 

21 they're all subservient to the DR Subcommittee 

22 activities and looking at cases.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: Well I certainly 

2 felt subservient.

3 DR. MAURO: Remember what the Site 

4 Profiles are there for. They were originally

5 invented as an idea to help do better DRs. 

6 And so they do, in my mind, the DR 

7 Subcommittee, I'm sorry I got, you hit the 

8 subject so near and dear to my heart that this 

9 is where the action is.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I've always 

11 said that, John. This is where the action is.

12 DR. MAURO: Other then SECs. I 

13 realize everyone understands the importance of 

14 --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: As I recruit 

16 new Members that's what I say. This is where 

17 the action is.

18 MR. STIVER: And how has that 

19 worked out so far?

20 MEMBER MUNN: You see how that's 

21 worked for you don't you?

22 MEMBER CLAWSON: That's why we all 
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1 have caffeine.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let me, here's 

3 what I'm trying to get at in terms of sort of 

4 maybe modify, not modifying but being a little 

5 more specific in the procedure that we have. 

6 And I think we just raised a few. But what 

7 are some of the examples of this other 

8 category that was mentioned earlier.

9 And I think worker placement, the 

10 CATI findings, the professional judgments on, 

11 you know, internal dose type of, or you know, 

12 fitting internal dose data, that sort of 

13 thing. Can you give me other examples that 

14 fall under those?

15 MR. STIVER: Really CATI findings 

16 are pretty important. Those really do spell 

17 out and help you develop a scenario in the 

18 placement of those.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

20 MR. STIVER: And probably the two 

21 biggest issues in terms of determining dose.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes. I guess 
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1 that's --

2 MR. FARVER: -- problems of large 

3 areas.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's some of 

5 the pretty large areas anyway. I mean but 

6 that is the idea is to not, you know, I'm 

7 trying to put some language in the procedure 

8 just that reminds us all that we're not just 

9 narrowly looking at does this number match the 

10 number we got and going down a checklist.

11 You know, to keep in mind that 

12 we're, and I'm not saying you're not doing it.

13 I'm just saying going forward and outlining 

14 the information that we're taking. I think it 

15 would be good to document that, you know.

16 MR. STIVER: Maybe we should start 

17 talking about the observations in the 

18 evenings. Oftentimes those --

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, we glean 

20 over those.

21 MR. STIVER: Yes, but basically 

22 there was no response required. We capture 
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1 them, we never talk about them. They're in 

2 the matrices. You know oftentimes those are 

3 things like John Mauro was talking about.

4 I've made comments about let's say 

5 how a certain radionuclide was treated. It's 

6 in accordance with the TBD. But when you do a 

7 TBD it could be improved. So I think that is 

8 an observation. So at least it gets in there 

9 at some point. It's not lost completely.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right. And I 

11 mean the other one, since John's on the phone, 

12 I mean in the blind review and that whole idea 

13 of skin contamination contributing to the skin 

14 dose, you know.

15 MR. STIVER: Well that's a good 

16 thing because then you can really see --

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's an issue 

18 that I don't think we've ever really, we've 

19 brought it up, John brought it up, you know, 

20 many meetings ago. But it's sort of like, I 

21 don't think it's being handled anywhere. I 

22 don't know that there is a way to -- I think 
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1 we had that discussion like how do you --

2 MR. HINNEFELD: Well I really want 

3 to read what John wrote in that Roman numeral 

4 I or II or whatever it was on there.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I haven't 

6 looked at it yet either, right, right.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: -- going in is 

8 that once you start inventing an exposure that 

9 you don't know can happen or not, you stop --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Maybe that 

11 wasn't the best example, but I mean I'm just 

12 thinking of these other issues that come up 

13 that are not, you know, just simply quality 

14 issues and --

15 MR. FARVER: Now for example, when 

16 you talk about the skin contamination, we 

17 would probably raise that if you read through 

18 it and let's say the guy's a roofer and 

19 there's something in his CATI report about 

20 they replaced the roofs on the contaminated 

21 building so and so and he's got skin cancer on 

22 the hand or something.
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1 We would probably bring that out 

2 saying that that's possible. I don't know how 

3 to resolve that, you know. That's either hot 

4 particle or something on the skin and what 

5 size, how big, how long was it there? But I 

6 mean we would probably bring that out. I know 

7 we have in the past.

8 MR. KATZ: But again, you don't 

9 have to necessarily resolve it with that case.

10 So it's like, we have these two categories. 

11 Were the procedures followed? And then are 

12 the procedures adequate in light of this case?

13 And that's sort of the second part. Does this 

14 case shed light on a possible problem with the 

15 procedures?

16 MR. FARVER: Yes, and then are 

17 there just errors?

18 MR. STIVER: Well the errors in 

19 the quality --

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MR. KATZ: They're either followed 

22 or not. And if they're not, there are errors 
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1 in there. That's where the procedure's 

2 followed part. That's the slavish part that 

3 Mark wants to be, is saying --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm not saying 

5 it's not important.

6 MR. KATZ: No, but it's an 

7 element. But that's sort of the basic part of 

8 the review. The advanced review is does this 

9 case shed light on any weaknesses in the 

10 procedures?

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And how do the 

12 blind reviews fit into this model?

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Well one 

14 second before we move on to that, are you 

15 imagining that this new database is going to 

16 somehow increase our ability to keep track of 

17 these things which are called observations 

18 because they're not pointing out to problems 

19 of implementation. But they're kind of the 

20 bigger issues in a sense, kind of 

21 philosophical issues about whether the rules 

22 that we're playing by are the best rules that 
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1 they can be.

2 And are we supposed, I mean, I 

3 agree with that, that we've collected a number 

4 of them and we haven't --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Sort of gleaned 

6 over them.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Yes. We've 

8 had a lot of focus on quality issues recently, 

9 I think. And that's maybe distracted us from 

10 making the full use that we could of those. 

11 So I don't know if by tracking them more 

12 within a database that's useful or we're 

13 supposed to give them to Wanda.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well I think 

15 those are observations.

16 MEMBER MUNN: I would care not to 

17 have any more what ifs. I've dealt with 

18 enough what ifs.

19 MR. STIVER: If it's something you 

20 think might impact a procedure then, you know, 

21 it should be flagged and sent on to the 

22 appropriate Work Group.
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Are they, 

2 right now are they, do they all have like an 

3 address where they're to be sent?

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, sometimes. 

5 I mean I think lately though we've been saying 

6 no action required because they're 

7 observations.

8 MR. STIVER: Yes, an observation 

9 we don't require --

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So I want to 

11 look back at those.

12 MR. KATZ: I mean, I think the 

13 reality just because again, it sort of helps 

14 sitting in all the different venues, I think 

15 the reality of what happens right now is that 

16 there's no formal system. So we don't have 

17 this database where they get automatically put 

18 in this database and then they can be referred 

19 easily to the Subcommittee on Procedure Review 

20 or what have you.

21 But what we have is SC&A staff who 

22 are familiar with the issue, like John on the 
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1 phone here. He's familiar with the issue from 

2 one venue and he brings it to the other venue. 

3 So we have a lot of that that's happened in 

4 this program, a ton of it I would say that's 

5 happened.

6 So I'm not, I don't think we have 

7 a program so far that's sort of completely 

8 defective on this at all. I think a lot of it 

9 has happened. But it'd be good to develop a 

10 more formalized and sort of gap free system so 

11 that this, we know this happens.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But also even 

13 though we know it's happening we don't 

14 necessarily know the current status on some of 

15 these.

16 MR. KATZ: Yes and we can't, yes.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You can't just 

18 pull it up quickly, right.

19 MR. FARVER: We could do away with 

20 observations and turn them into findings. But 

21 the problem would be that they don't always 

22 fit under one of our categories.
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1 MEMBER MUNN: They don't really 

2 rise to the level of a finding. And they 

3 aren't something that we need to see as being 

4 pursued and "resolved." It's just an 

5 observation.

6 MR. FARVER: I'm looking at a 

7 couple here to try to get an idea of what they 

8 are.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, give me an 

10 idea.

11 MR. FARVER: This is one where we 

12 point out that one of the tables in the TBD, 

13 the headers, they're the wrong time periods. 

14 You know, it goes from let's see, pre-1970, 

15 you know, before 1970 to post-1970.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Neutron dose.

17 MR. FARVER: Should that be pre18 `70, post-`71 or, so we do point out things 

19 that we come across different things in 

20 documentation. I remember this one, I forget 

21 the document it was in, there were two tables 

22 in there with the same number.
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1 So it gets confusing when you try 

2 to refer to a table when there's two tables 

3 with the same numbers in them. So we'll point 

4 things out like that even though we can find 

5 the actual value they used because we can 

6 search both tables.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Now see those 

8 aren't the overarching --

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, those are kind 

10 of niggling little details.

11 MEMBER RICHARDSON: Although those 

12 are all observations which do have an address 

13 to which they could be sent and corrected, and 

14 acted upon very easily. And we probably 

15 should do that because it's, you use your 

16 energy to observe it and it should, we just 

17 sat on it.

18 MR. STIVER: Yes, there should be 

19 some outcome.

20 MEMBER MUNN: There usually are.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I think we 

22 usually say refer to Site Profile, but how 
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1 well that's linked and how, yes, the database 

2 --

3 MR. STIVER: Once we have so there 

4 may be some place --

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But I'm 

6 thinking more of the broader ones. Early on I 

7 know at least those broader issues were 

8 recorded as findings. And I think part of the 

9 reason that we stopped doing that was it was 

10 showing up in every case and this is kind of -

11 -

12 MR. STIVER: There was a 

13 replication.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, right.

15 MR. STIVER: There's so many 

16 replications you're going be showing these 

17 same types of things that we can't resolve.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Although we 

19 have a fair amount.

20 MR. FARVER: That was another 

21 reason for making a new observation because it 

22 was already being tracked.
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1 MR. KATZ: I mean an observation 

2 does sound kind of innocuous. You could call 

3 them by where they fit, potential procedure 

4 issue, potential TBD issue. I mean that's 

5 not, I mean that's what they are and then you 

6 know it's there. And that's, and you also 

7 know sort of who's supposed to be addressing 

8 it.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, we're going to 

10 take these more seriously then give them a 

11 more --

12 MR. KATZ: It's just potential. 

13 It doesn't mean it is. It has to be explored.

14 MR. FARVER: We use whatever title 

15 you want.

16 MR. KATZ: Right. So when you 

17 were asking about title. You were saying 

18 should we be calling these findings and I'm -

19 -

20 MR. FARVER: No, I'm saying we 

21 could elevate them to a level of a finding.

22 MR. KATZ: Well I'm saying, you 
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1 can call them a potential procedure issue, 

2 potential TBD issue.

3 MR. FARVER: We could call them an 

4 observation. I mean the --

5 (Simultaneous speaking.)

6 MEMBER RICHARDSON: You're saying 

7 that findings have actions that need to be 

8 taken --

9 MR. FARVER: Correct.

10 MEMBER RICHARDSON: And 

11 historically the way that we've handled 

12 observations is just to wave them goodbye.

13 MR. FARVER: Correct. If you want 

14 to call them a potential TBD issue you're 

15 going to have to have some consequences and 

16 some tracking of that.

17 MR. KATZ: Yes, but I think it's 

18 implicit. It's potential TBD issues, so then 

19 there's a group that deals with that TBD. The 

20 same thing with Procedures we have a group 

21 that deals with Procedures.

22 MR. FARVER: You would have to 
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1 assign it a, some kind of number, some kind of 

2 identifier, so, okay which is basically 

3 tracking it like you would a finding. But 

4 you're not calling it a finding.

5 MR. KATZ: Right and that will fit 

6 very nicely with the system that Stu was 

7 describing that we have and Wanda that we 

8 have, the Board's review system.

9 MS. BEHLING: Would it make sense 

10 to call, this is Kathy, to call these --

11 findings, or no, maybe we'll stick with 

12 observations.

13 MEMBER MUNN: We were very clear 

14 at the outset what a finding was. A finding 

15 was a defect of some sort that affected our 

16 job which is to do dose recalculations and to 

17 compensate people large sums of money if they 

18 had reached a certain level. That's what a 

19 finding was.

20 And anything that did not reach 

21 that level of specificity was not a finding. 

22 If we were observing that a table had an 
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1 incorrect heading on it, if we were commenting 

2 that this job is a better job than was done in 

3 the preceding review, those are observations. 

4 And they're, some of them should have an 

5 action of some sort. Others really don't 

6 require an action.

7 They are certainly not a technical 

8 issue that affects the compensation that is 

9 the major concern and the major focus of the 

10 entire Board. I think it would be a mistake 

11 for us to begin to elevate them to anything 

12 other than an item which probably should be 

13 corrected and needs to be tracked until it's 

14 fixed because it's not affecting the 

15 compensation issues which are our primary 

16 concern.

17 DR. MAURO: Wanda, this is John. 

18 I'd like to just, I agree with what you just 

19 said but there's -- it turns out that when we 

20 do our scoring in that Table 2, in our DR 

21 reviews, whenever we do have a finding and 

22 let's say and usually it has to do with a 
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1 quality issue. I mean, that's why it makes it 

2 into the table.

3 And we usually give it a low, 

4 medium or high. And there is a certain degree 

5 of judgment made. And usually something 

6 becomes high if, for one of two reasons. One, 

7 it could actually profoundly affect the dose 

8 outcome and perhaps the compensation decision.

9 That's always gets a high.

10 But also it gets a high if we feel 

11 that this is something that is fundamental and 

12 that could impact many cases. So it may turn 

13 out that we have, you know, there's ambiguity 

14 in a guideline where judgment has been made or 

15 judgment is being made by the DR person.

16 And he's been given that 

17 flexibility because no Site Profile is that 

18 prescriptive, it will never be that 

19 prescriptive. There's always going to be a 

20 certain degree of judgment. There's no 

21 escaping that.

22 But the judgment, in our opinion, 
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1 is so fundamental that it could affect many 

2 cases. And maybe it doesn't have a big affect 

3 on the compensation decision for this case. 

4 But it could have an affect on those kinds of 

5 judgments; we give them a high score. So I 

6 mean, at least I do.

7 So I would say that, I don't know 

8 if anyone agrees with that. But the judgment 

9 that we make, SC&A makes on why we think 

10 something is high, and of course we have a 

11 chance to talk to you folks about it during 

12 the one on ones. So we do have a pre13 screening process where we go low, medium or 

14 high based on the one-on-one conversations we 

15 have with you.

16 MEMBER MUNN: And I don't think 

17 you're getting any push back on that position, 

18 John. I don't think so at all. I'm just 

19 saying that, in my personal opinion, the 

20 established criterion that we had for 

21 identifying the difference between a finding 

22 and an observation was a valid one. That was 
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1 my only point. I don't see raising 

2 observations to the level of findings.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well if the two 

4 examples I heard, you know, from Doug, I will 

5 agree with that. I mean, because those, you 

6 know, changes on and I think in those 

7 instances, I may be wrong, but I think the 

8 tables are wrong in the TBD, but in fact the 

9 workbook had, was doing the calculation 

10 correctly. You know, it didn't really affect 

11 the reconstruction at all. I agree, that's an 

12 observation.

13 Nonetheless, it should be captured 

14 by NIOSH and fixed, you know, for the next 

15 revision of the profile. On the other hand, 

16 if you have observations that are sort of 

17 these broader issues, as John was saying 

18 earlier, and I don't have an example in my 

19 mind. But if there was something that was 

20 more of a scientific question but they sort of 

21 knew it was being handled on the, I guess --

22 MR. STIVER: What if you came 
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1 across something that was, had broad 

2 implications but wasn't necessarily rigidly 

3 defined as a finding, per se because it was 

4 kind of outside the scope of what the TBD had 

5 prescribed?

6 So something that would be in the 

7 Site Profile environment would be considered a 

8 finding, it just so happened that the dose 

9 reconstructor was the first one to notice it 

10 during the review. Right now it would be --

11 (Simultaneous speaking.)

12 MR. STIVER: There's a few 

13 different categories of observations that say 

14 what they are.

15 DR. MAURO: I've got the biggest 

16 one for you. The biggest one is the judgment 

17 on whether we use 50th percentile full 

18 distribution, when to use the 95th percentile.

19 I run into that and that's a judgment call.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is that listed 

21 as an observation though in your previous --

22 DR. MAURO: That, the person, the 
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1 way it goes right now, that would be a finding 

2 that is in Section 1.3 on the Site Profile 

3 because what happens is the Site Profile 

4 leaves, and the procedures. And not only in 

5 the Site Profile, but it's also in the 

6 procedure, I forget which, 60, I forget which 

7 OTIB it is.

8 But what happens there is the, 

9 rightly so, stay with me for a minute, rightly 

10 so that discretion is left up to the dose 

11 reconstructor, that is should I give this 

12 person the full distribution or should I give 

13 them the 95th percentile? And that I keep 

14 running into that and the place that I very 

15 often find myself on one side, and let's say 

16 NIOSH on the other side, is a judgment call. 

17 And that judgment has to be made 

18 by the DR. And therein lies what I would 

19 consider to be something that right now is, 

20 goes toward, you know, you would argue, well 

21 is that something you put a score into people 

22 or is that an observation? In my opinion, 
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1 that's so important we can't just leave that, 

2 we're not going to worry about that right now.

3 I mean that goes to the heart of 

4 the dose reconstruction and how those 

5 judgments are being made. So to call it an 

6 observation when it has such a profound 

7 implication, maybe not for this case that 

8 you're doing right now because it wouldn't 

9 change anything. Very often it doesn't change 

10 anything because the guy may be down at a 25 

11 percent PoC.

12 But the very idea that there is 

13 this ambiguity and the judgment that's being 

14 made is do we go with the 50 percentile or do 

15 we go with the 95 percentile. That just keeps 

16 coming back time and again. And the question 

17 is, I think when that comes up as an issue on 

18 a real case it's imperative that it be fed 

19 back to the Site Profile folks or to Wanda 

20 with the Procedures Subcommittee that we got 

21 to work this out.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: John --
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1 DR. MAURO: Because it's essential 

2 to every one of the DRs.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think we're 

4 in agreement, John. The one thing I'll note 

5 also in the first five sets that we did in 

6 that final report, at the end of it we had, 

7 John spoke to the case ranking. But I also 

8 added in the column for, I forget what we 

9 called it, but the broader ranking or the, and 

10 I guess this was the question that John just 

11 raised that this here's a judgment that likely 

12 has no impact on this case.

13 But it was a pretty big issue for 

14 the whole site. How are they going to deal 

15 with the 50th versus 95th. So we might have a 

16 low site -- low case ranking, you know, higher 

17 overall ranking because it had, you know, it 

18 didn't impact this case but it had potential 

19 to impact others. And that was the idea. So 

20 I think those, yes, I agree with you, John. 

21 That should be a finding, that shouldn't be an 

22 observation.
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1 MR. FARVER: Right and the other 

2 one that should be --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Maybe the 

4 disposition is to go to the Site Profile, it's 

5 being --

6 MR. STIVER: Certainly it should 

7 be a finding. It needs to be a disposition 

8 and tracked in the appropriate --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

10 MR. FARVER: Also if you're 

11 looking at the percentile and you disagree 

12 with what NIOSH did because of something you 

13 read in the CATI or job description and you 

14 feel it was one way or the other different. 

15 You know, it was a secretary -- maybe 95 

16 percent and maybe failed should be 50 percent.

17 So that would be a finding.

18 A case where it would not be a 

19 finding was if during our review of a Site 

20 Profile, you know, exposure matrix we brought 

21 up the point that, you know, we didn't like 

22 their percentiles or something, you know, 50 
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1 to 95 and we thought it was ambiguous or 

2 whatever, you know the grouping. Since we 

3 have been identified in another report that 

4 would probably either go in under 1.3 or as an 

5 observation, if it had already been 

6 identified. So I could see where it could go 

7 in either --

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I would think 

9 that would be in 1.3, wouldn't it? I would 

10 hope.

11 MR. FARVER: Yes, but before 1.3 I 

12 believe we were putting it in observations. 

13 Just an honest judgment.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And I think 

15 we're all saying similar things here. I mean 

16 the idea is just not to, you know, narrow the 

17 review so much that you're just looking at 

18 sort of a checklist, you're keeping an, and 

19 I'm not saying that you haven't been doing 

20 that. I'm just saying again that we should 

21 reflect that in what we write as a protocol.

22 MR. STIVER: I think we definitely 
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1 need to be cognizant of those things that 

2 could, you know, kind of be more site wide and 

3 identify them.

4 DR. MAURO: How would you think 

5 about, what would we do to Table 2, then? You 

6 see right now Table 2, you know, is not 

7 designed to capture those types of issues if 

8 they really go back to concern about clarity 

9 in a dose reconstruction site 00 I'm sorry, a 

10 Site Profile or a procedure that may or may 

11 not be active, that is, you know.

12 There may not be an active Work 

13 Group, but we do have an issue. It may be an 

14 issue that we've already identified and is in 

15 a finding in one of our Site Profile reviews 

16 or it might be a new issue. I just came 

17 across one that just surfaced while I was 

18 doing this. My goodness there's something 

19 wrong here.

20 And it wasn't captured in the Site 

21 Profile review so it's sort of like another 

22 category that do you want to try to capture 
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1 that in the Table 2 score card, somehow? Is 

2 that the question that's on the table?

3 MR. STIVER: Yes. I think that 

4 ultimately that's where it would have to be 

5 done.

6 MR. FARVER: What I would suggest 

7 would be just adding a single category. You 

8 know, we go up to letter H and that's our 

9 totals. I would bump that down to I and make 

10 letter H whatever you want to call it, 

11 potential TBD issues. Group them all into one 

12 category.

13 MR. STIVER: Yes or you know, 

14 either way. It can be easily incorporated 

15 into the structure that we have.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And the TBD and 

17 that TBD procedure category would also cover 

18 all these things like, I'm just thinking out 

19 loud, but it would cover all the workbooks and 

20 all the, because they're driven by the 

21 procedures, right, by the --

22 MR. FARVER: It would cover 
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1 overarching issues, how about that, the two 

2 you mentioned. It would not cover --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well I mean, I 

4 guess what I'm getting at is the workbooks 

5 are, should be consistent with the TBD or 

6 procedure that they fall under, right. So --

7 DR. MAURO: I would agree that the 

8 workbooks, for all intents and purposes, are 

9 an extension of the Site Profile and the 

10 procedures. And if we have, if we see that 

11 they didn't, the workbook didn't follow that, 

12 you know, that's basically a quality assurance 

13 issue. If it does follow it, but we don't 

14 like it, it's basically saying well we don't 

15 like the Site Profile.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's what I'm 

17 getting at, right, okay.

18 MR. STIVER: That procedure if 

19 it's not site specific.

20 MR. FARVER: So if it follows the 

21 Site Profile, but you don't like it, it would 

22 go into that --
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1 MR. STIVER: Potential.

2 MR. KATZ: Potential TBD issue, 

3 right.

4 MR. FARVER: Okay. I can live 

5 with that. And then if it's something like 

6 there's an error in the title of a table, that 

7 --

8 MR. STIVER: That's still an 

9 observation.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's an 

11 observation, yes.

12 MR. KATZ: It doesn't have the 

13 potential to affect dose --

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think Wanda 

15 clarified that. I think that, I agree with 

16 Wanda, that stays, that's an observation all 

17 the way, yes. Okay. Now dare I ask about 

18 blind reviews? Where do we think they fit 

19 into the picture?

20 MR. STIVER: I think we saw this 

21 morning they can be pretty helpful in 

22 identifying the impacting decisions with the 
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1 question of judgment, something that we don't 

2 typically see as much in these basic reviews. 

3 We sure see it, you know, within SC&A and also 

4 doing the comparison with NIOSH. Now does 

5 that -- that would have to feed into some 

6 other, you know, to become a metric.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think they 

8 have a lot of utility in identifying the 

9 critical points --

10 MR. STIVER: Yes, critical points, 

11 yes.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- in the, yes.

13 And when you're reviewing that you might 

14 notice it. But when you do it blind --

15 MR. STIVER: When you do it blind 

16 you put a little bit more thought into it 

17 typically.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, right. 

19 And then also the, you know, I guess the, you 

20 know, the importance of different decisions 

21 too I think can be highlighted in that 

22 process. Anyway I --
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1 MR. FARVER: It could very 

2 difficult to do particularly getting the, or 

3 using the updated tools that are available. 

4 You know, we're a little bit limited on what 

5 we use. I think they've made changes. Are 

6 there any changes to the platform that the 

7 tools are on or can they all still be PC 

8 based?

9 MR. SIEBERT: No, there's been 

10 some platform changes.

11 MR. FARVER: Yes, so there might 

12 be some difficulties getting us access or the 

13 ability to use the current tools.

14 MR. STIVER: Yes, we'd have to 

15 have full access to the tool sets first.

16 MR. FARVER: That's the only 

17 problem I see.

18 MR. SIEBERT: That's a key 

19 question.

20 MR. FARVER: Because I know we're 

21 having some issues with the CAD W because that 

22 was all moved to a different platform that's 
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1 not easily used on our PCs.

2 MR. STIVER: You guys are all on 

3 Windows 7 now, right? We have some who are 

4 and some who aren't at this point. We need 

5 something for us to work on, on our end.

6 MR. HINNEFELD: Well let's figure 

7 out what has to happen --

8 MR. FARVER: Yes, I just want to 

9 make sure we're comparing apples to apples.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, yes. And 

11 we don't want to throw a burr into right away.

12 MR. SIEBERT: And we are 

13 implementing that over time with the tools. 

14 And some tools are in the old process and some 

15 are coming to the new process as we --

16 MEMBER MUNN: That's another one 

17 of our numerous TLAs that gives me real grief.

18 It's very hard for an engineer to hear CAD and 

19 not think computer assisted design. I have to 

20 stop and think about that every time. All 

21 right.

22 MR. KATZ: So any other thoughts 
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1 about the value of blind reviews and about how 

2 much should be done? I mean we've done two --

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And also the 

4 approach. I mean I think we have two 

5 different ways to use and I saw some value in 

6 actually both methods.

7 MR. STIVER: I like the idea of 

8 having both -- to see the impact of where we 

9 find a technique using these very complex 

10 workbooks versus the standard health physics 

11 calculation.

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, because I 

13 think the approach, the standard health 

14 physics calculation kind of approach has the 

15 potential to identify things that, because if 

16 you start putting the blinders on and these 

17 are the tools that they're using.

18 MR. STIVER: And you start 

19 thinking of them outside the boundary.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, you can 

21 think outside the box.

22 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Also, I mean 
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1 it is very helpful to --

2 DR. MAURO: Have you folks had a 

3 chance to talk about Kathy's report on the 

4 blinds?

5 MR. KATZ: Yes.

6 DR. MAURO: Okay. You did do 

7 that. Because when all is said and done that 

8 conversation should have revealed what value, 

9 you know, what did it do for us.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It did.

11 DR. MAURO: I read the report, I 

12 said, okay, you start to see how it serves the 

13 process. It's another way to get at quality 

14 and consistency and, you know, where the 

15 judgments are being made, where the errors 

16 might be made.

17 So it's a whole other, I mean in a 

18 way you could say that the blind review is 

19 your final score of whether or not this is 

20 working. And quite frankly, I know that 

21 NIOSH, you folks are doing blinds right now. 

22 Is that correct?
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes.

2 DR. MAURO: And so in a way you're 

3 doing the exact same thing that we do with 

4 those too. And it's going to be, you know, 

5 there's no doubt that in the end the blind 

6 review process, whether done by the Board and 

7 its contractor or done by NIOSH, is probably 

8 the purest way in which you could judge the 

9 quality and consistency of the DRs.

10 I would strongly recommend that 

11 blind process continue, whether it continues 

12 with the Board and its contractor and/or with 

13 NIOSH and the role the Board might play in 

14 reviewing those, to me that is, everything 

15 else, I mean that is your final test, so to 

16 speak.

17 It tells you everything. If 

18 everything is working well or you, every one 

19 of these blinds should come out pretty close 

20 to each other and if they don't you'll know 

21 why. You can figure out why, as Kathy pointed 

22 out in her report.
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1 MR. KATZ: Let me ask a question 

2 that came up earlier, but we didn't pursue it 

3 yet because we were going to talk about it 

4 now. But DCAS is doing these blind reviews 

5 using the A formula basically, along those 

6 lines of what you've done at SC&A in your A 

7 and B formulas.

8 So does it makes sense for the 

9 Board to be doing blind reviews in the A 

10 formula or should it just focus on doing them 

11 using the B formula? That's the John Mauro 

12 formula.

13 MR. STIVER: I would say there's 

14 value in retaining the original component in 

15 that, because we're also comparing it to what 

16 NIOSH did.

17 And I think one of the problems 

18 NIOSH has had so far and it may not be this 

19 way for much longer, is that just being on the 

20 learning curve. Whereas, some of the SC&A 

21 people have been doing this for years and 

22 years and years. And it might give you a 
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1 better idea compared to the blind reviews like 

2 the one Kathy did or John has done.

3 DR. MAURO: One of the things I 

4 learned, because I was the one who was

5 involved in what I call the basic approach, is 

6 you know, I'm not, the workbooks as everyone 

7 knows, they make my head spin. And I say to 

8 myself, I can find myself lost in a workbook 

9 trying to figure out, you know, okay what did 

10 they do?

11 I don't want to look at that. I 

12 want to look at that DOE data. I want to look 

13 at the bioassay data. I want to look at the 

14 film badge data. And I want to determine for 

15 myself whether or not I, you know, what the 

16 doses are. And what I learned, I learned 

17 something very important in the process, is 

18 that NIOSH's workbooks and procedures operate 

19 at a much higher level of resolution than I'm 

20 working at.

21 In other words they have 

22 incorporated steps in the process where there 
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1 are adjustments made and considerations given 

2 to certain factors that really bring you into 

3 the state of the art in dose reconstruction, 

4 taking into consideration some real nuanced 

5 things that -- so I would say in a funny sort 

6 of way, I think the body of literature that 

7 has been compiled and documented by NIOSH is 

8 astounding.

9 The procedures, I mean I've 

10 learned so much health physics in reading 

11 those procedures. And so when there is a 

12 difference, very often it's NIOSH did a better 

13 job then I could do using my pencil and paper 

14 and my calculator and use what I call the 

15 common sense approach. But it reveals that.

16 So I mean the value was, my 

17 goodness look. The reason we're different is 

18 NIOSH did a much better job on adjusting for 

19 neutron energy distribution or whatever it is. 

20 But also what it does is, the common sense 

21 approach also, you can become blinded by the 

22 workbook.
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1 In other words, I could see a 

2 person going into a workbook and going through 

3 it step by step almost by rote, never really 

4 thinking about what they're doing, just 

5 automatically running the workbook. So I 

6 think you've got to do both.

7 I have to say I think you've got 

8 to do what I call the common sense, basic 

9 health physics approach. But also you want to 

10 work through and see the workbook approach. 

11 It's just so revealing, as Kathy's report 

12 pointed out.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I think from, 

14 you know, with our, my argument would be for 

15 keeping some capacity on the Board level of 

16 doing those blind reviews. Yes. I think both

17 understanding now that I'm happy that NIOSH is 

18 implementing this.

19 But also from a public standpoint 

20 I think that, you know, that's what the Board 

21 is here for is to be an independent sort of 

22 oversight review. And I think having a layer 
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1 of those blind reviews is good.

2 I'm struggling with the questions 

3 on number, you know, how many should we do. 

4 Because that was one of the criticisms we keep 

5 hearing is you said you were going to do two 

6 and that was eight years ago and now you're 

7 finally finishing two.

8 You know, so how many should we be 

9 doing? Especially given that NIOSH has now 

10 got a path forward and we have access to 

11 looking sort of at their aggregate findings 

12 from that process.

13 And the second part is selection. 

14 You know, I think it's difficult because we, 

15 if we want it to be truly blind, it has to be 

16 an in process case. And then we're often, 

17 we're likely to get anything. You know, we're 

18 not going to get best estimate cases.

19 MR. FARVER: Right and I think 

20 that's what we saw this morning with the big 

21 difference in the internal dose was --

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because they 
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1 were overestimating.

2 MR. FARVER: -- overestimating it.

3 MR. STIVER: Yes, I think you get 

4 the biggest bang for our buck we have to look 

5 at those that are, you know, close to a 

6 compensation level.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But we won't 

8 know if it's truly, so that's my question of 

9 the selection. How do you, you know? And if 

10 we're going at, Stu, what did you say? The 

11 best estimate cases, it's less then five 

12 percent overall isn't it? Or it's a low.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: It's a pretty low 

14 percentage --

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So our chances 

16 of getting that randomly, you know, are --

17 MR. STIVER: About two and half 

18 percent, somewhere between 45 and 50, I 

19 believe.

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So two and a 

21 half percent.

22 MR. STIVER: Pretty small.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

2 MEMBER MUNN: But statistically we 

3 are not going to want to do as large a number 

4 as would be necessary for us to get a good 

5 statistical evaluation of anything. That's 

6 just too large a number, too time 

7 constricting, just simply can't do that.

8 So it would, it seems, be wise for 

9 us to choose a relatively low number that we 

10 would attempt to maintain as much non-specific 

11 criteria in choosing as possible but still 

12 have the best estimates in there if we 

13 possibly can and rely to a large extent on an 

14 overview of the NIOSH internal review process 

15 to give us a feel for what their findings are 

16 to see whether there's any major disconnect 

17 with the findings that we would have in our 

18 relatively small number of cases. I wouldn't 

19 think that we'd want to do more than, we've 

20 done two, ten?

21 MR. STIVER: We've done two. 

22 Would it be possible for us to do, you know, 
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1 take a case that, you know, it's already been 

2 performed and adjudicated through NIOSH, so we 

3 can finalize it, you know, unbeknownst to the 

4 SC&A reviewers, that are within that range 

5 that look to be good candidates. And we could 

6 pick those that have, work that in house and 

7 then compare that back to what NIOSH did in 

8 the process.

9 MR. SIEBERT: I just have one 

10 clarification for my mind. Does that mean 

11 that for the comparison A which is checking 

12 the NIOSH version versus you guys following 

13 the same procedures, you guys would need to 

14 know the date that claim was actually done so 

15 you use the same revisions of all documents 

16 that were in place at that time? Because 

17 otherwise you don't have --

18 MR. STIVER: Yes, otherwise you 

19 would be comparing apples to oranges. 

20 Otherwise we're stuck with trying to pick two 

21 and a half percent. If you get something at 

22 ten or 15 percent, you know, you're starting 
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1 to see the impact.

2 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: If we're going 

3 to have a small number, my feeling is the 

4 types of cancers are critical. We've looked 

5 at one skin cancer, we're looking no more. 

6 But pick some them that we, that tend to come 

7 in more frequently types of cancers.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Also ones that 

9 tend not to be overestimated like prostate 

10 often would be overestimated because, we can 

11 other selection criteria. That's what I was 

12 thinking about. Are there other things we can 

13 select by other then PoC? I think we can 

14 maybe think --

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And then, you 

17 know, overall I think, Ted and I were talking 

18 about this earlier, but generally like 60 a 

19 year has been a rough number of how many --

20 MR. STIVER: That's about average.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- cases are 

22 reviewed. And do we think, I mean I'm just 
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1 throwing out, would ten percent, you know, 

2 would six be too many blind reviews or should 

3 it be?

4 MR. STIVER: Why don't we ask this 

5 to Kathy and John and Doug, what kind of 

6 effort went into producing the blind reviews 

7 in terms of hours as compared to a, you know, 

8 a basic?

9 (Simultaneous speaking.)

10 MR. KATZ: Kathy, John, did you 

11 hear the question?

12 DR. MAURO: Yes, I did. The way, 

13 when I was looking at these, quite frankly, I 

14 do it the same way. I check, when I do my DR 

15 reviews I do the same thing except that in 

16 this case in the blind I don't know what 

17 doses, you know, that they, NIOSH got. I 

18 don't know what PoC was attained.

19 But I have all the data. So it's 

20 really about the same amount of time. And I 

21 could tell you right now cradle to grave to do 

22 a, what I would say my judgment is cradle to 
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1 grave for a realistic whether it's a blind 

2 review or a DR review, it takes 100 work 

3 hours.

4 So I mean if you want to, you 

5 know, to go through the process. Now 

6 certainly some of them we do better. But 

7 they've been on that order. And John you have 

8 all the stats, but I think --

9 MR. STIVER: I can pull that 

10 information. I don't have it on hand right 

11 now, but it's --

12 DR. MAURO: You don't have it. I 

13 know when I was keeping track of it we were 

14 tracking at around that. Now of course it's 

15 quite variable depending on the complexity of 

16 the cases. But the cases have been getting 

17 quite complex. So what I'm saying is, I think 

18 the amount of time it takes to do a blind is 

19 probably not that much different than it takes 

20 to do the actual DR review.

21 MR. KATZ: I find that a little 

22 surprising considering the DCAS experience --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Also isn't 

2 John, everybody's also, I'm thinking, John, I 

3 mean most of your case experience is the AWE 

4 cases though.

5 DR. MAURO: That's absolutely 

6 true.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: So I think the 

8 other cases are different.

9 MR. STIVER: Yes, a DOD site like 

10 Savannah River or, you know, those really 

11 complex ones that Ron Buchanan does, those --

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, those 

13 require time too, right.

14 MR. STIVER: A lot of effort goes 

15 into them. But I think that 100 hour figure 

16 at least for the Part A sounds probably like 

17 ball park -- what I actually spent on the 

18 first two.

19 MR. KATZ: You missed the 

20 discussion, John, earlier where DCAS was 

21 explaining their blind review experience. And 

22 there's a lot of learning curve, et cetera 
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1 that goes into doing them yourselves versus 

2 reviewing. They're two very different in 

3 their experience, very different enterprises. 

4 And I'd be surprised if it's the same 

5 resources too.

6 DR. MAURO: Are you, I just, on my 

7 own, I'm kind of curious, what is the level of 

8 effort it usually takes to do one of your 

9 listed cases? Are you free to disclose that 

10 or is that something you --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Boy ORAU sent us 

12 something.

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MR. KATZ: In hours?

15 DR. MAURO: In work hours, not 

16 dollars. No, no. Just --

17 MR. SIEBERT: I believe between 

18 dose reconstruction and peer-review the 

19 average is somewhere between 12 to 16 hours.

20 MR. KATZ: But that's --

21 DR. MAURO: That's terrific. 

22 Okay. I could never do one in that time.
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1 MR. CALHOUN: I've never done one, 

2 a blind DR. But I would, I can't imagine it 

3 would take us any more than 30 hours. Beth's 

4 done one. I mean, what do you think?

5 MS. ROLFES: Maybe 30 hours.

6 MR. STIVER: About 30, so about a 

7 week's worth of effort.

8 MR. KATZ: Okay. So double what 

9 ORAU takes though is what you're saying? 

10 Which makes sense, I mean you don't do this 

11 every day and they're doing it every day.

12 MS. ROLFES: When I did mine I 

13 didn't use the tool. So I did it as a TBD.

14 MR. KATZ: Right. That's sort of 

15 similar to what John's saying, so John, you 

16 might double what you would consider your 

17 resources for doing a review, double that for 

18 doing it.

19 DR. MAURO: A blind?

20 MR. KATZ: A blind.

21 DR. MAURO: Okay.

22 MR. FARVER: And a lot of it 
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1 depends on the case and how many data points 

2 you're looking at and how many thousand DOE 

3 records are included.

4 MR. STIVER: They can range over a 

5 factor of ten. I mean some of these you can 

6 bust out in one afternoon. Others can take 

7 two weeks of hard effort.

8 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: If we're 

9 talking about one, two, three, we can't set a 

10 percentage. I think we can't set a number 

11 even. I think if we're talking about, two are 

12 in process, one is done, one is in process. 

13 My sense is if we have five, right if we have 

14 five different ones of different cancers and 

15 then let's see if there are systematic things 

16 that we're learning.

17 And then we can reassess and say 

18 fine, we've learned what we can learn, stop. 

19 Or say no, we see a pattern in these kinds, 

20 let's go ahead with x more.

21 MR. STIVER: Cyclic incremental 

22 type of approach.
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1 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, that's 

2 right.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I agree and 

4 that's why I wasn't trying to make us stick to 

5 ten percent. Six sounds like a reasonable, 

6 you know, five or six. And then we reassess. 

7 I don't think we can really assess with one or 

8 two. Let's get a few more at least.

9 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Right there 

10 are no patterns going to come out.

11 MR. FARVER: But on our part the 

12 biggest hold up is just going to be getting 

13 that interface together and the tools to the 

14 workbooks.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The only other 

16 thing I would ask is that because we can 

17 probably wrap up this discussion, the only 

18 other thing I would ask is that if you have 

19 ideas on how to, I think the type of cancers 

20 obviously we'll need selection criteria. Are 

21 there other criteria that would help us?

22 MR. STIVER: Type of cancer, 
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1 complexity of the case, various things like 

2 that.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well you know, 

4 like I said, several of these things you're 

5 not going to have if the case is in process, 

6 right. So if it's a true blind review, what 

7 are you going to know?

8 Well one thing is site. We could 

9 make sure we don't get the same site all the 

10 time or --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: The case of the, 

12 like the contractor, the SC&A review will be 

13 done.

14 MR. KATZ: Will be adjudicated.

15 MR. STIVER: Yes, it will already 

16 be adjudicated so we'll be able to look at --

17 MR. HINNEFELD: So we'll know and 

18 then if you, you know, we can ask that.

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 MR. HINNEFELD: You know, we have 

21 access. We can either trust them not to look 

22 at it or we could mask it. You know, I guess 
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1 DCAS could say okay, well SC&A now can't see 

2 these two --

3 MR. KATZ: You can block them.

4 MR. HINNEFELD: Yes, we can block 

5 them too. It depends on what you guys want.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But also, I'm 

7 just thinking about, we I mean, as a selection 

8 criteria we can't say we want something 

9 between 45 and 50 PoC because then SC&A sort 

10 of says okay, well I've got 42, you know. 

11 We'd better look at this closely.

12 MR. KATZ: I think you've got to 

13 do the selection out of SC&A's awareness.

14 (Simultaneous speaking.)

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Some of it may 

16 be the mechanics of how we do this. We might 

17 have to have a closed door session of the 

18 Board to select the blind cases. Anyway we 

19 can figure that outside of this.

20 MR. STIVER: Just do that and send 

21 us the information for that one.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. So I 
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1 think that is helpful just in terms of what 

2 we're doing on the regular reviews and the 

3 idea of the blind reviews.

4 MR. FARVER: What kind of 

5 timeframe, for now, were you looking at or 

6 thinking about for these blinds? Like next 

7 year, total year or?

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I mean I 

9 would think for the next year we would want 

10 five or six, you know.

11 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: So two are 

12 almost, two are --

13 MR. FARVER: Two are done.

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: One and a half 

15 done, so three next year?

16 MR. FARVER: Okay.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, so we 

18 should probably, I mean I think at the next 

19 Board meeting I'm going to present some of 

20 what we've discussed here. If the Board 

21 agrees, I think the next thing we should do is 

22 task at least a few more, you know, to get the 
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1 ball rolling.

2 MR. FARVER: You want to do two in 

3 the first six months and then two the second 

4 six months, for four?

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

6 MR. FARVER: Or if it's small like 

7 that I think we could handle.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Or three and 

9 three, whatever.

10 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Two and two 

11 during the regular year, one in the summer and 

12 then have the Board discuss is that too much?

13 MR. FARVER: Well I'm not sure --

14 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: I'm looking, 

15 when the Board meets in the fall to be able to 

16 talk about them. That's a good, sort of 

17 academic calendar.

18 MR. FARVER: I think a lot of this 

19 we're not going to really know for sure until 

20 we start digging into them.

21 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, okay.

22 (Simultaneous speaking.)
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That gives us 

2 enough to go on. That's, I think that's good.

3 And can we, I'm not sure how much we're going 

4 to get into the matrices. But let me ask, I 

5 want to take five only because I need a 

6 comfort break.

7 But can we, what is the preference 

8 and since Scott and Doug are probably closest 

9 to this, should we try to look at matrix eight 

10 and nine? Are we close to wrapping those up? 

11 I can't remember. Or should we do ten through 

12 13?

13 MR. SIEBERT: I think we'd 

14 probably get through Rocky and LANL.

15 (Simultaneous speaking.)

16 MR. SIEBERT: They're pretty close 

17 because --

18 MR. FARVER: We'd probably get 

19 through at least Rocky.

20 MR. SIEBERT: Quite a bit of them 

21 because we have a --

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Let's take five 
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1 and then we'll focus on Rocky after the break.

2 And we've got to be cognizant of some people 

3 have to, Dave, you have to leave a little 

4 early that's --

5 MEMBER KOTELCHUCK: Yes, I could 

6 leave before the end, but probably maybe a 

7 quarter of five.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We'll be done 

9 by, I think we'll wrap up by five anyway.

10 (Whereupon, the foregoing matter 

11 went off the record at 4:14 p.m. and went back 

12 on the record at 4:24 p.m.)

13 MR. KATZ: We're back. 

14 Subcommittee on Dose Reconstruction and 

15 Review.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. We're 

17 going to just do, we're going to jump to the 

18 last item on the agenda which is the case 

19 reviews for the Rocky Flats cases in the 10th 

20 through 13th matrices. And I will, there is a 

21 matrix that was sent out to, does everybody 

22 have one of those?
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1 Alright. You're one ahead of me. 

2 I just got it, so I'll leave it up to either, 

3 I guess Scott or Doug to start off on them.

4 MR. FARVER: Okay. It's the basic 

5 matrix format. We have the finding, the NIOSH 

6 response and SC&A response. And then an SC&A 

7 suggested action. Our finding 252.1 assigned 

8 missed dose, missed photon dose not consistent 

9 with the protocol or the DR Report.

10 We have a lengthy NIOSH 

11 description, I mean it's very thorough. And 

12 it comes down to really two basic issues. The 

13 DR Report says that they used best estimate 

14 methods. And really we've used overestimates 

15 for some portions, okay. So that's one part 

16 of this.

17 And then the second part is, the 

18 DR Report states that 238 missed doses were 

19 used, so basically 238 cycles were used to 

20 calculate the missed dose. When you look at 

21 the calculations only 196 were used. Now so 

22 if it's mainly an issue of what was said in 
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1 the DR Report was not what was actually done. 

2 That's what it all boils down to.

3 And we've seen this before. You 

4 got the gist of it, Scott?

5 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, the, it's 

6 really, the first one is the wording issue of 

7 overestimate versus best estimate methods, 

8 which when I look back at the actual report we 

9 do state the processes claim the dose was 

10 assigned estimating using efficiency measures, 

11 which is overestimates.

12 And then in the next paragraph it 

13 does say this dose reconstruction was 

14 performed using best estimate analysis for 

15 some components. So I believe we were 

16 relatively clear on the fact that portions 

17 were overestimated.

18 MR. FARVER: Some were, some 

19 weren't.

20 MR. SIEBERT: The overall claim 

21 was overestimated, but portions were best 

22 estimate, so.
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1 MR. FARVER: Okay. And in some 

2 reports we'll see where they'll say that it 

3 was efficiency methods for, you know, certain 

4 parts and they'll list the parts. And I mean 

5 for photon, for other external doses.

6 And then for internal dose they'll 

7 say we used efficiency methods or something. 

8 It just, it was clear in this one. And then 

9 the other issue is just the number of zeros.

10 MR. SIEBERT: And the number of 

11 zeros I would, that's just, that's a typo 

12 error between the numbers between the two 

13 because, yes, you're right. Your numbers and 

14 ours as to the actual count of what was used 

15 were relatively consistent, so.

16 MR. FARVER: Yes, it's not a 

17 complaint about the method or anything. It's 

18 just what was written and not what was done.

19 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

20 MR. FARVER: Okay. So we suggest 

21 just closing that one.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can I ask, I 
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1 mean this, I should point out for the record 

2 this is our first attempt at this process 

3 where you guys had an interim discussion. 

4 Were there any Board Members on the --

5 MR. FARVER: This is the second 

6 attempt. And we didn't have any discussion.

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: It's the second 

8 attempt.

9 MR. FARVER: I mean we didn't, I 

10 mean the second --

11 MR. SIEBERT: Nothing you said was 

12 right.

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MR. SIEBERT: There was a call in 

15 between, we had discussed that before. We 

16 have never had that process.

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

18 MR. SIEBERT: This has all been we 

19 submit our responses, they submit responses 

20 back. So it's all been on paper.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay.

22 MR. FARVER: And really what it 
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1 would come down to us wanting to need a call 

2 is if something isn't clear. But usually the 

3 explanation made it clear or --

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well the only 

5 reason I asked is because when we initially 

6 had the idea of having a call, we were going

7 to make it known to the Subcommittee in case 

8 someone wanted to dial in. No one had that 

9 opportunity.

10 MR. FARVER: We haven't had --

11 MR. SIEBERT: We haven't had to do 

12 that, right.

13 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I was just 

14 going to ask if we had, yes. Right.

15 MR. FARVER: So far what's worked 

16 in potential findings was we get responses in 

17 time, we can look at them thoroughly. A lot 

18 of times we understand what was done so we'll 

19 recommend closing it. And on a couple of 

20 instances like you'll see here, we recommend 

21 that the Subcommittee --

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I just wanted 
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1 to clarify, I wanted to note whether we had a 

2 call. And so in this case you don't, there's 

3 no recommendation to, no need to change, 

4 modify, I mean the concern about the language 

5 in the report being misleading.

6 MR. FARVER: We've seen it several 

7 different ways. It's like sometimes they will 

8 say that it's a --

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

10 MR. SIEBERT: Well this one didn't 

11 specifically say external recorded dose, 

12 external missed dose and external ambient 

13 dose. It was specified which pieces were best 

14 estimate and which were overestimated.

15 MR. FARVER: And we were wrong on 

16 that part. But then the number of zeros just 

17 did not match up with what they calculated.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And so the last 

19 column is our action as a Subcommittee. If, 

20 I'm just asking the other Subcommittee 

21 Members. I mean I think this is okay. Any 

22 comments? Any reasons not to close it?
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1 MEMBER MUNN: I don't see any.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: All right. 

3 Fine, we'll close.

4 MR. FARVER: Okay. Moving right 

5 along is --

6 MR. SIEBERT: That closed a whole 

7 case.

8 MR. FARVER: That closed a whole 

9 case, yes, now we're 53.1.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We're already 

11 more efficient.

12 MR. FARVER: Incomplete accounting 

13 of the recorded dose? Okay. This is the one 

14 where I mentioned that part of the dose for 

15 1958 was assigned in '58 and part of it was 

16 assigned in '59. The shallow dose of '58 was 

17 just for part of '58 was assigned in '58. The 

18 deeper dose was assigned in '59.

19 They assigned all the dose. They 

20 broke it out into two separate years. And you 

21 could see part of the issue was the dosimeter 

22 that ran from December through the beginning 
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1 of January from '58 to '59. Our biggest 

2 concern was well if you want to put it in '59, 

3 put it in '59 or put it in '58.

4 But we just didn't understand why 

5 it was split. It makes it difficult to review 

6 a dose reconstruction like this when it's not 

7 clear if the things are split like that.

8 MEMBER MUNN: So there wasn't 

9 anything wrong with it. It just wasn't 

10 obvious.

11 MR. FARVER: The numbers were 

12 correct, just spread out a little bit.

13 MEMBER MUNN: Okay. It could 

14 happen to anybody.

15 MR. FARVER: And really that's the 

16 first time I've seen that happen. I don't 

17 know if they do that a lot. There was just 

18 different ones we haven't seen before.

19 MR. SIEBERT: That's really 

20 unusual though, yes.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Can I ask for, 

22 I know we closed 252. But for both the last 
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1 252 and since that closed out the case, like 

2 Scott said, and 253, they're both in the SEC 

3 time frame. Are they non SEC cancers I assume 

4 or are these --

5 MR. CALHOUN: Part of them would 

6 have to be, but that doesn't mean, you know, 

7 they may have had a second.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: These years in 

9 question, yes.

10 MR. SIEBERT: And it may have been 

11 done prior to the SEC. This was done in 2006, 

12 the first one was done in 2006.

13 (Simultaneous speaking.)

14 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, the SEC was 

15 later then that.

16 MR. KATZ: 2008.

17 MR. SIEBERT: Yes. So that's why 

18 there's no --

19 MR. CALHOUN: The second one is 

20 SEC cancer only.

21 MR. STIVER: There's only two out 

22 of the eight that were not SECs.
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's right. 

2 These are the, yes, these are those ones.

3 MR. SIEBERT: And once again, the 

4 second one was done in 2007 as well. So the 

5 same thing, it's prior to the SEC.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Recommendation is to 

7 close it.

8 MR. FARVER: Recommend to close 

9 it. Don't know what else to do to it.

10 MEMBER MUNN: That's great. Why 

11 not? Discrepancy is explained.

12 MR. FARVER: So we, are we 

13 finished with 253.1?

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

15 MR. FARVER: Okay. All right. 

16 253.2, inadequate information for derivation 

17 of the organ dose. This stems from, we 

18 couldn't match their calculations. So and 

19 this was a Monte Carlo calculation, so a lot 

20 of times we do have difficulties matching 

21 their numbers. Usually if it's within like 

22 ten percent then we'll say okay, it was 
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1 probably just due to Monte Carlo fluctuations.

2 Okay. This case, we couldn't 

3 match it that close. So when we got this 

4 response back Ron went and reworked it again 

5 using values from OTIB-12, which does have 

6 values in it that you can approximate Monte 

7 Carlo calculations. And the values were 

8 closer. So it was done correctly. We just 

9 had difficulty interpreting it. Was that the 

10 gist of it?

11 Part of the reason we had trouble 

12 deriving the organ dose was that a file was 

13 not included. The IREP output sheet that was 

14 included in the files we received did not 

15 match the final IREP workbook sheet. So we 

16 didn't know how you got from one to the other.

17 The numbers were different.

18 So you have a workbook which the 

19 final page has your IREP output. And then you 

20 have your final IREP input sheet. And they 

21 should match. So there's two and --

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: When was this 
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1 form dated?

2 MR. SIEBERT: 2007, early 2007.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because I, I 

4 mean I understand and it seems, the outcome 

5 seems fine. In the middle of the response, 

6 the first paragraph, they say the practice was 

7 not to include the detailed calculations at 

8 the time, the practice was not to include the 

9 detailed calculations with the claim files. 

10 Wasn't this after we talked about the show all 

11 work, include all the work kind of concepts or 

12 no?

13 MR. SIEBERT: 2007's awfully early 

14 for that.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I can't 

16 remember.

17 MR. SIEBERT: Compared to this 

18 Subcommittee.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MR. SIEBERT: Well and I 

22 personally think it probably should have been 
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1 included as well.

2 MR. FARVER: Anyway, we suggest 

3 closing that one because we don't know what 

4 else to do with it.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is everybody in 

6 agreement?

7 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

8 MR. FARVER: Now if we want to 

9 look at an observation, we can look at 

10 observation one on the next page of 253. We 

11 were able to match NIOSH's numbers for certain 

12 years. But there were two years when our 

13 adjusted gamma dose was less than what was 

14 used by NIOSH.

15 Now this goes back to, NIOSH was 

16 very good about this. They did give responses 

17 to observations. It goes back to their 

18 response for 253.2. And I'm guessing that had 

19 to do with the file that wasn't included. The 

20 reason that we couldn't match those couple of 

21 years because it was done a little bit 

22 differently in the worksheet that we didn't 
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1 have. But that's an example of an 

2 observation.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean why was 

4 that separate from 253.2? You reported that 

5 separately, why?

6 MR. FARVER: Just an observation. 

7 It really didn't impact, excuse me, impact 

8 anything. It was one of these cases where the 

9 numbers didn't exactly match. We didn't know 

10 why, but it really wasn't going to have an 

11 impact on anything.

12 MEMBER MUNN: It was explained in 

13 253.2 why there should be, why it would not be 

14 unexpected to have slight differences.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, I was just 

16 trying to understand why that was listed 

17 separately than the finding we just went 

18 through.

19 MR. FARVER: The same thing for 

20 observation two.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No action. Are 

22 we in agreement as a Board first?
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1 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I don't 

2 understand. So there's a bunch of these like 

3 253.4 and .3, all these are tied back to 

4 253.2, the kind of the response that's given 

5 there.

6 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

7 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But how does 

8 that response kind of bear on like observation 

9 number four related to the neutron dose? 

10 Maybe I'm not -- is it sort of that this sheet 

11 was quirky and they used values based on a 

12 phone conversation?

13 MEMBER MUNN: Well probably 

14 because --

15 MR. STIVER: It looks like there's 

16 -- it was a Monte Carlo calculation.

17 MEMBER MUNN: And SC&A had half,

18 found half that assigned by NIOSH in cases 

19 where the findings are claimant favorable then 

20 there's not going to be any major --

21 MR. STIVER: That's a best 

22 estimate Monte Carlo.
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1 MR. SIEBERT: And remember those 

2 findings were prior to them using the OTIB-12 

3 DCFs which were closer DCFs than what you're 

4 going to see in Monte Carlo. And then once 

5 they did that those are things that matched up 

6 better, is my understanding from what they 

7 did.

8 MR. HINNEFELD: How many workbook 

9 sheets are we talking about in our response to 

10 253.2? There's the RFP workbook version 

11 three, IREP output, which really isn't an IREP 

12 output. It's an input to some Monte Carlo 

13 calculation.

14 MR. SIEBERT: It's the output from 

15 the workbook in IREP form. It's the last page 

16 of the workbook.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: So and then down 

18 in the next paragraph, there's an input data 

19 worksheet. Is that part of the RFP tool, the 

20 RFP workbook?

21 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, input data is 

22 the second tab in the tool.
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1 MR. HINNEFELD: So that's one of 

2 the tabs?

3 MR. SIEBERT: It's one of the tabs 

4 in the tool.

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. And there's 

6 a comment there that says when the NDRP gamma 

7 dose is greater then the DOE file reported 

8 dose you make some sort of correction to 

9 something.

10 MR. SIEBERT: Right.

11 MR. HINNEFELD: Which would be 

12 photon dose or?

13 MR. SIEBERT: It's, yes, it's the 

14 whole NDRP collection stuff. I don't have 

15 that off the top of my head as to what the 

16 specific corrections are. But it's handling 

17 the NDRP data.

18 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay so it's, so

19 it has to do with the interpretation of the 

20 NDRP data. And it's sort of a conditional 

21 when the photon doses or gamma doses -- and 

22 then the year worksheets are other tabs of the 
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1 tool, of the RFP worksheet where it talks 

2 about the, on the year worksheets --

3 MR. SIEBERT: Yes, those are all 

4 still tabs of the --

5 MR. HINNEFELD: Those are tabs on 

6 the RFP workbook. Too many moving parts for 

7 my brain.

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I know it's a 

9 little late in the day to figure out some of 

10 this --

11 MR. HINNEFELD: So something about

12 when the RFP gamma dose is used, it's used in 

13 some fashion for like based on the missed dose 

14 zero selection. This is all a fairly, it 

15 seems to me to be an, it's a fairly 

16 complicated interpretation that uses the NDRP 

17 dose.

18 MR. SIEBERT: That's what we're 

19 going on.

20 MR. HINNEFELD: And it's built 

21 into the worksheet and so not, if someone like 

22 me looked at the worksheet I would be 
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1 completely flabbergasted about what I was 

2 looking at. I mean I would not know really 

3 what I -- because I don't do this. But it's 

4 the interpretation of the, how to utilize the 

5 NDRP data which I recall is there are a bunch 

6 of things, there's bits and pieces, a bunch of 

7 different pieces to the NDRP.

8 MR. SIEBERT: Right it's not a 

9 full data set for that individual. It's 

10 pieces, parts that we have to interlock into 

11 what we have.

12 MR. HINNEFELD: So you have to 

13 assemble it and based on some if’s and then’s 

14 and that's all done in the workbook.

15 MR. SIEBERT: That's what that is.

16 MR. FARVER: And what we found is

17 -- the workbook we've got all the IREP output 

18 or input data. And then you have the final 

19 IREP file that you plug in and do your PoC 

20 calculations. Those two things did not match 

21 and we, for some, for some it did.

22 And so we're questioning, well 
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1 where are the work calculations, and when we 

2 did our calculations we always came up with 

3 less. So the numbers in the final IREP were 

4 higher, but we weren't exactly sure why. But 

5 they were less, that's claimant favorable. 

6 That we did not make in a finding.

7 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. So when it 

8 was, when your numbers were higher then it 

9 showed in the finding.

10 MR. FARVER: If it would have 

11 showed up higher we probably would have made 

12 it a finding.

13 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay. And when it 

14 showed lower then it's not. They showed up 

15 lower on --

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's still a 

17 finding. But that's not the question I guess, 

18 you know. It's a quality finding you're 

19 saying.

20 MR. FARVER: Yes, because the file 

21 was not included at the group of files.

22 MR. HINNEFELD: Okay.
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1 MR. STIVER: I'm not sure we even 

2 understood what they did.

3 MR. SIEBERT: Right that was at 

4 the time, as I said when we moved forward one 

5 tool was used that has the generic 

6 overestimates of the DCF1, something like that 

7 to put the data into the correct format for 

8 the complex, for the best estimate tool to do 

9 the Monte Carlo calculations on the pieces 

10 that needed that Monte Carlo calculation.

11 That's why there's some of it that 

12 will stay the same such as medical technology, 

13 I believe missed dose, those things stayed the 

14 same because Monte Carlo doesn't affect them. 

15 But the Monte Carlo calculations that were 

16 different were the ones that were run through 

17 the tool for the measured external, and yes 

18 that file should have been in there.

19 (Simultaneous speaking.)

20 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: This is another 

21 tough one only because, I mean, I think 

22 observation number one I still think should be 
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1 a finding number one. But you know this, the 

2 explanation this is a 2007 case, not a 2001 

3 case. So, you know, the idea of well this was 

4 a while ago or a long time ago. I mean, I 

5 don't know.

6 MR. FARVER: And the reason --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: We have to 

8 start to watch out for that explanation.

9 MR. FARVER: -- was number one 

10 they were already identified in a finding that 

11 we didn't know how they came up with their 

12 doses. We identified that something was 

13 different between the two IREP sheets. So we 

14 already made that a finding.

15 So now we're getting down here and 

16 we do some calculations and we figure well 

17 there's a couple here that we don't really 

18 know why they came up the way they did. But 

19 they're less than, I mean they're less than 

20 the NIOSH values so that's claimant favorable, 

21 it's already been identified.

22 And really to tell you the truth 
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1 these could go either way. I can make them 

2 findings or I can make them observations.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean are 

4 those all part of the --

5 MR. FARVER: It's all part of, you 

6 don't know how you got from this IREP table to 

7 this IREP table. So we did our calculations 

8 and they don't match yours, but we don't know 

9 what calculations you really used.

10 MR. SIEBERT: So then really the 

11 specifics for portions of what's discussed in 

12 253.2, specific years and information as 

13 opposed to the generic issue of you couldn't 

14 understand where the numbers came from, why 

15 there's a difference between the IREP sheet 

16 from the end of the tool and the IREP sheet 

17 that was actually run for PoC.

18 MR. FARVER: Yes.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But then to get 

20 to this 253 observation two. I don't think 

21 we're going to, you know, maybe wind it up 

22 with this discussion. But observation two, 
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1 you talk about this like David said the phone 

2 call. And, you know, the other interesting 

3 part for me in that explanation is that this 

4 new dose conversion factor, it wasn't included 

5 in the modified TBD. Is that what I'm 

6 understanding this to say?

7 MR. SIEBERT: Correct.

8 MR. FARVER: So that probably 

9 should have been a finding.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

11 MR. FARVER: That one, now that 

12 I'm reading it. But you know, once again it 

13 didn't have an impact on the case.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: But it could 

15 impact on a wider number of cases if --

16 MR. FARVER: It could have. I'm 

17 looking at that now thinking, you know --

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You know, was 

19 this person right with the phone call or was, 

20 I'm not following this. You know, is --

21 should the -- why wasn't the TBD modified?

22 MR. SIEBERT: I can't speak to --
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1 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm sort of 

2 asking.

3 MR. STIVER: That one probably 

4 should have been a finding.

5 MR. FARVER: Yes, and a lot of 

6 time when we're --

7 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That certainly 

8 could affect other cases and it wasn't done --

9 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I guess it's a 

10 bigger question of are values often changed 

11 based on telephone conversations?

12 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

13 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean have we 

14 seen this as a precedent before?

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I haven't.

16 MR. STIVER: This is back in the 

17 early years.

18 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: No, this is not 

19 early years though. I don't --

20 (Simultaneous speaking.)

21 MEMBER RICHARDSON: So here's a 

22 bigger question though. Are values changed 
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1 based on phone calls that happened three years 

2 ago and haven't been documented anywhere?

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Right.

4 MR. SIEBERT: Well that comment 

5 was not a comment that was put in by the dose 

6 reconstructor in 2007. That's a comment that 

7 was in the workbook explaining why the DCF, 

8 the ICRP-60 DCF value was different than what 

9 we would normally refer back to.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: And this value 

11 was not implemented in subsequent revisions.

12 MEMBER RICHARDSON: But it was in 

13 that revision?

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes.

15 MR. STIVER: It was in that 

16 revision that the --

17 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean it was 

18 in that revision of the workbook, but was it 

19 in the --

20 MR. SIEBERT: I can't tell you 

21 specifically on that one.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I'm reading 
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1 what I'm seeing here. I don't know.

2 MR. STIVER: It was not 

3 implemented but I don't know why it was 

4 incorporated to begin with.

5 MEMBER RICHARDSON: I mean the 

6 spreadsheet is supposed to represent as 

7 implementing procedures that are -- the 

8 spreadsheet is supposed to be a calculation 

9 following on procedures, right?

10 MR. SIEBERT: Generally true or 

11 documenting updated things until we can get 

12 the procedures updated to what the new 

13 information is if we have to do that. That's 

14 the kind of thing that we put the dose 

15 reconstructor guidelines in place. Something 

16 like that would be called out these days in 

17 something like that so it's documented 

18 somewhere other then just within the tool.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Because you 

20 might wait on updates to --

21 MR. SIEBERT: To the TBD itself.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: -- because 
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1 you've got several -- comments and --

2 MR. SIEBERT: But we may want to 

3 use the best information for interim, which, 

4 you know, we run that stuff through DCAS and 

5 we make those decisions.

6 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well I'm 

7 interested in looking at case 253 myself. I 

8 don't know that we can, you know, I think, 

9 yes, I think if nothing else observation two I 

10 think should be elevated to a finding. And I 

11 don't know that I'm prepared to discuss this 

12 further without looking at more of the details 

13 of that case, back at your report I think.

14 MR. FARVER: My report didn't say 

15 a whole lot about that observation.

16 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Maybe just, 

17 maybe it's a matter of, you know, pulling the 

18 case file. I think I'm interested enough in 

19 this one to understand what was happening in 

20 the workbook. Other's opinion. We're hitting 

21 that time of day.

22 MR. FARVER: Well I shouldn't say 
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1 that. There is a Table 5 in our report that 

2 kind of lists all the different dose 

3 conversion factors and the different TBD 

4 revisions and it has changed over the years. 

5 And then the one that was used in this DR 

6 Report is a completely different one. In 

7 other words, the TBD says .345. And this one, 

8 the DR Report used .327.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That was the 

10 DCF we were just talking about?

11 MR. FARVER: Yes. So I guess 

12 you'll have to look at the evolution of why it 

13 changed from 654 to 345 and how it wound up to 

14 327, which is half of 645.

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I don't know. 

16 I was looking at the next case to see if it 

17 was just like one finding and maybe we could 

18 tackle that. But I think we might have to 

19 leave it at that.

20 MR. FARVER: Yes, this one's just 

21 a..., we don't know why you used that dose 

22 conversion factor when there's other ones out 
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1 there. And maybe that should have been a 

2 finding.

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Okay. I mean 

4 is there any, who has, I mean I can go a 

5 little while longer. I don't have a time 

6 frame here. If we want to attack --

7 (Simultaneous speaking.)

8 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I would say 

9 this for now. I'm not prepared to close on 

10 those observations. But maybe we can move on 

11 to 274.1.

12 MR. FARVER: I'm not sure you want 

13 to do that.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is it nasty?

15 MEMBER MUNN: Well it's the 

16 workbook.

17 MR. FARVER: It's messy.

18 MEMBER MUNN: Yes.

19 MR. STIVER: RFP workbook.

20 MR. FARVER: I can give you a 

21 preview.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Yes, give us a 
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1 preview and then maybe we'll decide whether we 

2 want to call it a day. Make it nasty.

3 MEMBER MUNN: It goes on, it goes 

4 on and on.

5 MR. FARVER: Do you remember from 

6 that report I wrote there was one of these 

7 that I listed as unknown because I didn't know 

8 what the cause of it was? Guess which one 

9 this is.

10 MEMBER MUNN: This was it.

11 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Now I'm 

12 intrigued.

13 MR. KATZ: Maybe we should 

14 schedule the next meeting, that way you, in 

15 January, you have all this -- still ready 

16 for..., so we don't have to wait so long.

17 MR. FARVER: Yes, you may want to 

18 look at this one for the next meeting because 

19 --

20 MR. STIVER: That's a good idea. 

21 Prepare it in advance.

22 MR. SIEBERT: It's NDRP 
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1 manipulation.

2 MR. FARVER: It's NDRP 

3 manipulation.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. 

5 You've said enough. Ted's got a good idea. 

6 Let's schedule the next meeting.

7 MR. FARVER: Quickly the employee 

8 had reported dose for a certain amount of 

9 years. And it came up to like 5.5 rem over 

10 the period of four years if you look in the 

11 dosimetry files.

12 MEMBER MUNN: Which is not a big 

13 deal for four years.

14 MR. FARVER: Okay 5.5 rem. And 

15 now it's, you go to the DR Report and there's 

16 zero recorded dose for those five years.

17 MEMBER MUNN: Go figure.

18 MR. FARVER: Go figure.

19 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: That's a good 

20 place to leave us. Go figure.

21 (Simultaneous speaking.)

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. 
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1 Let's look at our calendars and these meetings 

2 always end up this way don't they?

3 MR. STIVER: They end up pretty 

4 punchy at the end of the day.

5 MR. KATZ: So let's put this as 

6 the first item of our agenda for next time. 

7 We'll start with these case reviews.

8 MR. KATZ: They're closely related 

9 emotionally.

10 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. So 

11 let's look into January.

12 MR. KATZ: How about the third 

13 week in, the week of January 14th? How does 

14 that look?

15 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: The week of the 

16 14th?

17 MR. KATZ: How does that look for?

18 MEMBER MUNN: I will not be 

19 available in January.

20 MS. LIN: Do you already have a 

21 procedure review the 5th of February?

22 MEMBER MUNN: Yes, I do.
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1 MR. STIVER: Tag onto that.

2 (Simultaneous speaking.)

3 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: You're not 

4 available in January at all, Wanda?

5 MEMBER MUNN: I don't see how I 

6 could be. I could probably do a phone on the 

7 third week in January.

8 MR. CALHOUN: The 6th and the 16th 

9 is bad for me in January.

10 MR. HINNEFELD: I can't do the 

11 18th.

12 MR. FARVER: What about the fourth 

13 of February?

14 (Simultaneous speaking.)

15 MR. HINNEFELD: What are we 

16 talking about?

17 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: How about the 

18 14th? Wanda, can you dial in that day or?

19 MEMBER MUNN: I could dial in on 

20 the 14th, yes.

21 MR. STIVER: January 14th.

22 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is that 
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1 possible? Or wait a second or better yet the 

2 15th, I'm sorry.

3 MR. FARVER: The 15th is better 

4 for me then the 14th.

5 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: 15th, yes.

6 MEMBER MUNN: I'll try. I'm not 

7 going to be very available that day, but I can 

8 be on and off.

9 MR. KATZ: Well we need to worry 

10 about a quorum too. Poston didn't show and so 

11 we have to be careful about that.

12 MEMBER CLAWSON: We'll shoot for 

13 that one.

14 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Is another day 

15 better in that week, Wanda?

16 MEMBER MUNN: My spouse's surgery 

17 is on the 5th.

18 MR. KATZ: So that's actually not 

19 any good that week then.

20 MEMBER MUNN: I mean it's on the 

21 8th and so I'm going to be kind of --

22 MR. KATZ: Well then let's push it 
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1 up. If I don't have a quorum we can't meet. 

2 And we don't want to show up here and find out 

3 we can't meet.

4 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Well then 

5 realistically what was the 5th was the 

6 Procedures?

7 MEMBER MUNN: No, the 5th of 

8 February is Procedures.

9 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: I mean, how 

10 about the 4th then, yes?

11 MEMBER MUNN: It's a possibility.

12 MR. KATZ: The 4th is open.

13 MR. KATZ: Is the 4th okay, folks?

14 (Simultaneous speaking.)

15 MR. KATZ: Let's do the 4th.

16 MR. STIVER: The 4th it is.

17 MR. HINNEFELD: We'll start at 

18 8:30 again?

19 MR. KATZ: Yes, let's start at 

20 8:30. Okay.

21 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright.

22 MR. KATZ: Okay. So February 4th, 
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1 8:30 and here, but call in if you can't come.

2 CHAIRMAN GRIFFON: Alright. And 

3 with that I think meeting adjourned.

4 MR. KATZ: And thank you everyone 

5 for all your hard work. And thank you 

6 everyone on the line. And have a good day.

7 (Whereupon, the meeting in the 

8 above-entitled matter was concluded at 5:01 

9 p.m.)

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